Christmas Traditions: Past and Present

This post is prompted by Laura. I didn't want to overwhelm her comment box so I thought I would put it in a post on my blog.

Christmas traditions that stand out in my mind from when I was younger are getting our Christmas trees as a family with my Mom's side of the family right after Thanksgiving, making Christmas cookies, cut out sugar cookies in particular, where Mom would make them by the hundreds and Daddy would ice them while me and my three sisters would sit around the table and decorate them. I am trying to implement both of those traditions with my girls...so far so good :-)

On Christmas Eve, we would go to church for the Christmas Eve service where we would sing a few Christmas carols, hear a short Christmas sermon, and light candles in a dark church (I love that part too Laura). After the service we would go to Lakeside Park (Fond du Lac, WI) and drive around to see the lights. When we were younger we would stop to see Santa but as we got older we wisely went the other direction around the park to avoid the crazy line of cars that never seemed to move. We would then hurry home. Although Loran and I won't be doing Santa for our kids, my parents did Santa for us.

I remember one year when my grandfather dressed as Santa and I didn't realize it until much later. That memory sticks out so well. I was running around the house being chased by my uncles and I ran smack into Santa! In OUR house! That was really neat. I miss my grandpa...

Anyway, my parents would always "forget" something in the house before we would leave for church and bring out the presents. They did that for a while even after we learned there was no Santa, just for the fun of not knowing the size and number of presents until that night.

Once we got home from seeing the lights, we would get out the tray of cheese and sausage and the cookie and candy trays as well as the slushy punch (I am addicted to this stuff but I reserve it for Christmas time...sooo good!). Then we would go, one by one, opening our presents. We always savored every gift and were polite as we could be while the others were opening their gifts. I thank my parents for a Christmas eve tradition that we still follow when we are home.

Christmas morning was leisurely and we would go to either my mom's or dad's side of the family for Christmas dinner around noon or 1pm. Because my extended family all lives so close together we would spend some time with both sides of the family at some point during the day. I treasure those experiences to this day. When we were home last year for my sister Heidi's wedding and Christmas, we spent some time with Mom's side and then took the girls to see Dad's side of the family and then back to Mom and Dad's house for time with the "immediate" family.

This is the first year that we are at our house for Christmas. We went out and cut our own tree. We will be doing tons of cookies and candy to share with friends in the area. We will go to the Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew's, come home and make homemade pizza, enjoy some cookies and candy and slushy punch and watch White Christmas. Sometime during the holiday we will watch the Christmas cartoons and Little Women (those movies are also past traditions from my family). We won't open presents on Christmas Eve because the girls are so young, but some day we probably will.

One Christmas Day, we will get up and have a nice breakfast, read the Christmas story from the Bible (a tradition that Loran brings to the family) and then open gifts, one gift at a time. We will have a wonderful Christmas feast in the early afternoon and then...well, I haven't gotten that far yet :-)

My family really did establish alot of traditions. I don't know why, maybe it was because me and my sisters thrived on the sameness of it, the predictability of what we would look forward to every year so that now, at 34, 33, 31, and 27 years old, my sisters and I still look forward to those things when we get to my parents' house. I read in some parenting magazine that traditions are important to establish with your children. Not just for Christmas but other times throughout the year especially, things that would be special to just your family. By examining my past and present Christmas traditions, I can see where the author of that article was coming from.

Thanks, Laura, for causing me to examine some of my most beloved memories and allowing me to reaffirm my desire to create traditions with my girls.