My mom always decorated her house for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. As far as I know she still does, but I haven’t been there for the experience in a few years. I remember it as a huge undertaking. Boxes upon boxes would be hauled from the attic. Then each box would be unpacked on to the dining room table so that contents could be evaluated. She would then either have us kids put the decoration where she wanted it, or she would do it herself.
Decorating the Christmas tree usually came later. We always had a live tree, so we would get it closer to the holiday. Then it was a family trip to the tree farm to pick out our tree. We had to debate about which to get, we’d all be freezing cold before we were done, but we had fun. We decorated as a family. My dad had spent so many hours stringing the lights on to his satisfaction…and he is picky about his lights. He likes lots of them, and he doesn’t like the wires to be visible. He weaves the strings in and out, from center to tips of the branches, from top to bottom of the tree. I don’t even know how many hundreds of lights he could get on a 6 foot tree, but they are always beautiful. Then my mom sits in her chair, surrounded by boxes of ornaments. We nibbled on Christmas cookies (which she had spent hours baking since Thanksgiving) and drank hot cocoa as we hung our ornaments.
Most of our ornaments came from our maternal Grandmother. Every year she gave us a new one, as part of our 12 Days Before Christmas gifts. Each day, for twelve days, we got to open a gift. Some things we knew we would always get: pajamas on the 24th, an ornament in our theme (my brother always got nutcrackers, I always got angels and my sister teddy bears), and usually personalized pencils and assorted odd things. Nothing super expensive, just fun stuff to build the anticipation. As my brother and I got older, we realized that when we left home, our parents’ trees would be barren since almost all of the ornaments were ours! So we began to get them ornaments each year. Now, even though each of us kids has taken our special ornaments, Mom and Dad still have beautiful ornaments for their tree.
On Christmas Eve, the traditions ramped up. We usually went to mass in the evening, then came home for dinner. We always dressed nice for dinner (and for mass, but…) and dinner on Christmas Eve was always roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas, and Yorkshire pudding. I’m probably forgetting something, but I know those components were there. This was our day of English traditions. After cleaning up from dinner, us kids would get on our special Days before Christmas pajamas. Then we’d gather around our dad. When we were younger, he’d read us The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore. The copy we had was illustrated by Arthur Rackham and I love the illustrations! As we got older, we had to beg and wheedle our dad to read the story to us each year. He is very good at reading out loud, especially this story. And curling up at his feet to listen to the story is one of my treasured memories.
We would hang our stockings after hearing the story, put out cookies and milk for Santa and then head to bed.
Invariably, at least one of us would be up by 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. We’d huddle in our bed in shivery excitement until another of us kids was awake. Then we’d sit in the dark and whisper, wondering what Santa had left under the tree. Yes, we did this even as we got older…in fact, I can remember sitting on the stairs with my sister the year I had Jillian! We weren’t allowed to wake our parents until 6:00 am, and we weren’t allowed to go downstairs until they were awake. They always went down first, started coffee, turned on lights, and start up the kerosene heater for warmth. When they were ready, we could come downstairs to stare in wonder at the goodies left under the tree.
Santa gifts were never wrapped, but left under the tree. Each of us had a pile, artfully arranged. Books, games, dolls, calendars…whatever we were interested in. I often got art supplies and books. After oohing over those, we went to our stockings, which were overflowing with goodies.
On Christmas Morning, we ate mom’s Christmas cookies if we were hungry, we drank hot cocoa out of our Santa mugs, and we spent hours opening gifts, one by one. My brother played Elf, choosing what gift would be next and announcing who it was for and who it was from. We each kept our pile of opened gifts near us, and watched everyone else open their gifts. We always shivered with excitement when other people opened gifts we’d given. It was fun to see their reactions!
Finally, after all the gifts were opened, usually around 9 am, we’d each return our gifts to a place under the tree and then wander off. Sometimes we’d dress in some of our new clothes right away. Sometimes, there’d be a special gift we wanted to poke at some more. My dad would often prepare brunch: frittata or chorizo and eggs. Christmas day, for us kids anyway, was for enjoying our gifts and being lazy. Christmas Dinner was the next big event. Christmas Day was our day for Spanish traditions: We always had Paella for dinner. Sometimes we had friends over to share with us, sometimes not. Despite the seafood in it, I always enjoyed it.
These traditions came to mean a lot to me, most especially as I left home and no longer had my parents orchestrating my holidays for me. Now, my family (my husband and children and I) celebrate our own traditions. Some are from my family, some are from my husband’s, and some are just things we want to do. My mom has continued giving the Days Before Christmas gifts to my kids. We try to have paella during the holiday season, even if we don’t always have it on Christmas Day. I make Cinnamon rolls to snack on Christmas morning. Toph makes Caramel Popcorn. I read the Night Before Christmas to my family now, although for a long time I tried to get Toph to do it. Every time I read it, I hear my dad’s voice in my head.
I’m very thankful for my family’s traditions. I’m very thankful that my parents took the time to make such special traditions for us. I’m very thankful that my husband and I have been able to work together to find a way to include traditions from my childhood and his in our own holidays.
And now, for your enjoyment, I want to share a video my sister in law, Lanie, sent me this morning. I so thoroughly enjoyed it, I spent the next hour or two after receiving it, exploring other videos featuring the same group!
Merry Christmas to all! (and to all a goodnight)
December 24th, 2007 at 8:32 pm - Edit
I’m so glad you liked that video! I loved it! I did the same thing as you! I haven’t been to Bloomington for over a year but now I want to hook up for one of their performances!
December 24th, 2007 at 9:32 pm - Edit
You had some great traditions as a kid. I did too, but I didn’t carry too many of them into my own family. I am wondering why. Maybe because of the bittersweetness I feel because of what my parents have evolved into. Maybe because Levi has never really gotten into Christmas, as much as I tried to get him to in the beginning. He’s just not a very excitable kid. He’s happy all the time, very constant, not susceptible to to highs or to lows. I know that is a good thing in many respects, but at Christmas a little high would be appreciated!
December 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm - Edit
I loved reading about your family’s traditions. I *especially* loved the gift-giving the 12 days before Christmas; I’d love to do this with my kids.
I remember reading something a woman wrote once where her family had a birthday tradition of, whenever it was someone’s birthday, the whole family would wake them up first thing in the morning with a big homemade birthday cake. They’d sing and blow out candles first thing, and then they’d all pile on the birthday girl’s/boy’s bed and eat a piece of cake before breakfast. For some reason this always sounded good to me; I always thought it would be a great way to wake up.