I've been reading a number of blogs recounting personal
Christmas traditions recently, and naturally started to ponder about my own family
traditions and how they have evolved over the years. There is natural evolution tweaked by the progression of time; there are changes through the addition of
new family members, and the passing of others. None of our traditions have been
carved in stone though.
When we were young children, after dinner, we would leave
milk and cookies out and a note for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve. I don't actually remember making the cookies -
I should check with my sister who seems to have a photographic memory of the
past; I'm sure she remembers making them. When we were ready for bed, our father
– the storyteller at night-time rituals – would read T'was The Night Before Christmas by
Clement Clarke Moore. I can remember the
excitement I felt thinking about Santa landing on our roof. Wait! Do I hear
bells jingling? OOOOh!
I wonder whose idea the bells were – I'm guessing Mom's.
photo courtesy of amazon.com
As we got older, we would join our neighbors to make
ornaments for the trees at Church on the Saturday before Christmas. The parish
meeting house would be full of balsam, red ribbon, paper and glue. It was a
pretty jolly time. We would go to the Christmas service at on Christmas
Eve, in the late afternoon, participating as little angels attending the
group at the manger when we got old enough. Then, after eating a
quick dinner we bundled up to join the caroling group that consisted of our
extended family with a number of lovely neighbors thrown in for good measure. We went
house to house singing the songs we knew the best as loudly as we could, hopefully
to brighten the holiday for our older neighbors who were staying in for the
evening. Then we returned back home for some hot chocolate and cookies and to
get ready for bed, leave the cookies out for Santa & reindeer, and
experience The Reading of TTTNBC and finally wait
for Santa's visit.
Christmas morning ca. 1956
Christmas morning, according to the photographs, was
probably pretty average for the 50's and 60's. A morning full of opening
presents, followed by visiting with neighbors to see what they got, followed by
a big family dinner with, in our case, a roast beast with all the trimmings.
Our family favorite happened to be beef rib roast with Yorkshire pudding. Every.
Year.
Christmas dinner ca. 1967
After that – sledding if there was
enough snow. Followed by more hot chocolate.
sledding party c. 1954
As we all aged, so did the traditions. Eventually, I became
the big angel ushering the little angels around the stable and watching over the the holy family. After the service, dinner
and caroling, the hot chocolate and cookies gave way to going to a neighbors'
house for a rousing Christmas Eve party. The party lasted pretty late but broke
up before midnight, so the younger ones could get to sleep before Santa came.
My brother at this point was designated reader. It was pretty hilarious. I'm
also fairly sure that the eggnog – surely the best recipe ever* – had a hand
in it.
As we children started leaving home for school and work, the
traditions changed. We didn't all get together for one thing. My brother had
left for England, but later came back with his new bride. We got to embellish
our Christmas traditions with treasure hunts and new dishes to amplify the
dinner table – our newest member of the family happened to be a wonderful
cook and lots of fun.
Leaving home, and starting our own families and
traditions, I hope that we left trails of Christmas crumbs that our children
are still following. When they were young, my kids experienced the late-night reading of TTNBC, when
we returned from faithfully tromping off to grandmother's house for roast beast
– on Christmas Eve, to accommodate having two families to share Christmas with.
We are all spread out over the globe now, and Christmas traditions change from year to year. I know my kids still put up a real Christmas tree, when they
can. And then they go out to a movie. No roast beast for them – unless they
have a vegan version that I don't know about.
Christmas 2007
A few years ago, when I was caring for my mother before she
moved into an assisted living apartment, I was making gingerbread cookie
buildings on her kitchen
counter in preparation to host the annual Christmas party for my husband's office. I needed to really dress up the house and make it
look pretty, and chose to make Martha Stewart's gingerbread village. It was a fairly ambitious project; Mom and I were repeating an old
family custom, but with the roles reversed. When Mom reached out and snitched a
bit of dough and promptly put it in her mouth, time stood still for a moment. I
recognized the gleam in her eye and the smile on her face. We didn't have a lot
of coherent communication at that point, but her message was loud and clear.
Christmases have been different now that our parents are gone.
Released from the family rituals, we can, and have, traveled to Italy for Christmas
with my husband's extended family. We have hosted Christmas at home with our
kids who have gone off on their own; and now that the grandchildren are older,
we travel to where they are on a rotating basis now.
This year it is Christmas
at home and the new twist is that a new grandchild is coming to celebrate his
first Christmas. We will have our traditional Italian-Polish-Finnish-American-English-Indian Christmas this year. What about you?
Enjoy your holidays!
* The best eggnog ever recipe: I know it had melted plain vanilla ice cream
as its base, and I'm pretty sure bourbon was involved. When I was old enough, I
got to try it out (officially). Yep, it
was good. These days I'm thinking amaretto might be a good choice.
