When I was a little girl my family had lots of traditions for the holidays, especially Christmas. Christmas was always my favorite one. It started every year with Thanksgiving, when we would go to my grandparents' to spend time with the family. My favorite part was when the women would take all the kids and the dog for a walk to the park after dinner while the men did all the dishes. It was a great time filled with family. We had a lot of fun, like turkey races, and playing ghost in the graveyard. My family was so much fun.
The very next day, Christmas season would officially start. We weren't like most families, running out for Black Friday sales. Instead my sister and I would clean the house. I remember scrubbing the China cabinet one year and talking about what we wanted for Christmas. We always went out of our way to clean the house to be as spotless as possible. Santa wouldn't bring toys who lived in a messy home. Looking back, I didn't do near as much as I should, but I guess it's the idea that counts, right? We would listen to Christmas music the whole time.
After that, we would put up some decorations real quick, little cardboard punch outs that would go to all the doors and windows. In time we got window clings to decorate with as well. That went together pretty quickly and suddenly the house felt Christmassy again.
Once the house was clean, that's the day the real work would start. My mom would bust out the Christmas tree and lights. Almost every year we had a fake tree. That whole process would be filled with aggravation. New lights had to be acquired every year. We would untangle them all, only to find half of the sets didn't work anymore, or they had one mystery light out that would shut down the whole set. Then, once we'd satisfied the light need, my mom would start stringing them up from the top down, adding each branch as she went. The number of lights that went on that tree was mildly insane. That thing lit up so bright I swear you could see it from space! It was all done up in colored lights too. By the end of it, my mom was quite irritated and we generally ended up having to send my dad to the store for an extra string of lights or two because we'd never estimate enough.
While my mom was painstakingly putting up all the lights, my sister and I were unwrapping all the ornaments. We talked about our favorites. We would get excited about some that did really cool things. I always liked the bulbs that you put a light bulb in the back of them to light up the scene. There was one with a little nativity scene which was my favorite of all. I always loved it with a blue light in it so it looked like night. This was a distraction from our frustration that the lights were just taking way too long to go up on the tree. We were impatient kids, but who's not?
Once the lights were up and the ornaments were unpacked, we put the ornaments up. My sister and I did most of the work, but all the glass ornaments had to go up top so the cat couldn't break them. My mom did that. My sister and I would pick the perfect spot for each ornament. When we were done we were so proud of our masterpiece. That tree had so many ornaments I'm surprised it didn't fall over from the sheer weight!
The rest of the season would be filled with Christmas music until the end of the holiday. We'd go over to our grandmother's house on Christmas Eve, spending time with the family there. We would open all our presents from our aunts, uncles, and grandparents as well as playing with the other kids. Once again, the men did the dishes. Almost every year we played a rousing game of some board game or another. I remember watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
one year on Christmas. I think I was falling asleep on someone's lap. We would get home, put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, then drop off into bed, being too excited to sleep, but somehow still falling asleep anyway.On Christmas morning my sister and I would sneak out of bed about a dozen times to look at the presents. I'm sure one of us would eventually wake my parents so that we could open the presents. After presents my mom would make waffles, bacon, and eggs for a special Christmas breakfast. Then we would get dressed and go over my other Grandmother's house where we'd have Christmas all over again, a dinner with fancy dishes and silver, and then head home too exhausted to carry on for another day.
The next week would be filled with playing with all our new toys, but we were allowed to keep them under the tree. They didn't need to be put away until the tree came down some time in January. Taking the tree down was always a sad event, but it gave us something to look forward to next year.
I hope to set up some wonderful and memorable traditions for my own family. While we didn't get a chance to this year because we're sharing holiday traditions with our house mates, I do hope to start some regular family traditions. We had already got it in our heads to start some. We might start getting a real Christmas tree, both to save on storage and because I love the look and smell. Either way, I want the tree to go up pretty early, just like at home, maybe we can get it after Thanksgiving if it's a real tree. I can put all the lights on. The kids can do the ornaments. I want to decorate the whole house, not just the tree. We may not get adventurous enough to decorate our yard, but I want to at least decorate the inside, even if it's very simple directions. I want to set up advent calendars for the kids. I want to have our ginger bread party on Yule every year. If we're home, our tradition has already started of spending Christmas Eve with friends and Christmas day on our own, going out to Christmas dinner somewhere so no one has to cook. Until we can get a waffle iron, we're probably going to stick to pancakes for Christmas, but I'd like to do waffles, like my mom. Of course, if we can start affording to travel for Christmas, that might be a significantly different idea.
I think it's important to have traditions for the family, some old, some new. These are special memories that will never be forgotten. Looking back, some of my most cherished family memories were of traditions my family held on to every year for the holidays. I hope to have that for my children as well. Far too many families have given them up these days. It's time to get them back!
No comments:
Post a Comment