Christmas Traditions

[maxlillady]

This time of year brings on memories of many family traditions. Those folks that aren't necessarily traditional may have atleast a Christmas tradition. I'm sure many die or fade away as time goes on and surely new ones are started. I believe one of our most favored is the stuffed stocking. My children still look forward to finding the treasures of their stockings on Christmas morning and even though my youngest is 18, Santa still delivers the stocking favors. This is the first thing they get to Christmas morning and something I truly believe I would miss. What are some of your traditions?

[chrissy]

Ours was the same Maxlillady....I miss the stockings. We also had the kids bring us coffee in bed before they could tackle the stockings. Boy do I miss my coffee in bed!

[jb]

Nov 29, 2009 20:51:19 GMT -5 chrissy said:

Ours was the same Maxlillady....I miss the stockings. We also had the kids bring us coffee in bed before they could tackle the stockings. Boy do I miss my coffee in bed!

We never thought of that! Good idea!

[jerry]

Actually, I was saving it for a bit later, but since you asked... This story is also appearing in the Dec issue of Old Tennessee Valley magazine:

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Jerry C. Smith
Modern holiday logistics sometimes require that we old patriarchs spend an occasional Christmas Eve at home, alone. With our offspring and assorted kin all scurrying about, shopping and trying to visit eight places at once, sometimes there’s just not enough holiday to go around. For reasons not appreciated by the young, Christmas Eve can sometimes be a lonely, sad place for vintage adults. That’s why I decided to go home for Christmas this year.

My stereo system is loaded with about three hours worth of music that’s been in our family for decades. We’re talking Perry Como, the Statler Brothers, Henry Mancini, the Naramore Family, and other music copied onto audio tape from old LP record albums I started buying as far back as 1964. This music has blessed Christmases for my family since there was only two of us, barely able to afford even a record album.

A host of holiday images, both joyous and sad, are indelibly linked with those albums. They've been played every year for audiences ranging from two people to more than a hundred, then a few, finally just one; me. With my gift of near-total recall it’s a simple matter to relax, let the music do its work, and drift backward toward home. No, not my present abode, but rather those for which I get homesick even when I'm already home.

First stop will be sometime in the late 1980’s at our last family home, a big split level in Moody, AL with its huge moss rock fireplace and roaring fire of wood that I myself felled and split on our own property . No gas logs here; it’s real flame and smoke and ashes, giving warmth to all the four or five dozen guests who’ve joined us at numerous family gatherings for food, presents and fellowship.

Many of these folks are no longer of this Earth, except as images captured on video tape and film. Our official Yule music is playing in the background while all present are busily passing around new grandchildren, getting better acquainted with recent brides & grooms, and generally making a mess that’ll take days to clean up. I linger here a while, enjoying the sights, sounds & aroma, then slowly drift backwards another decade or so to even warmer Decembers.

Next stop is our old homeplace in north East Lake, where my own kids were raised. The Christmas tree is much simpler and cheaper. It’s decorated with a few ornaments donated by my Mother, formerly used on other trees much farther back in time. Among them are delicate globes made of thin glass, originally two dozen of which we seem to break at least one every two years or so. There’s less than a half-dozen left, so we’ve been extra careful while hanging them on the tree along with strings of bubbling lights and miles of braided tinfoil.

My wife and I always left the tree lights on after Santa’s late-night visit. Next morning we'd lie quietly in bed way before dawn and listen with amusement as two youngsters in footed pajamas sneaked their way into the living room. Those two boys knew better than to awaken us, but they just had to sneak a peek at their yearly windfall.

We'd hear whispered things like “Gaw-leeee” and “Wow” and “looky here” as they quietly browsed among brand new Rockem-Sockem Robots, bicycles, .22 rifles, air hockey, Etch-A-Sketch, all the fine and simple things that used to make kids’ eyes grow big on December 25. Then the little wake-up game would proceed in earnest.

Anxious to tear into their loot but highly reluctant to rouse sleeping parents who, unknown to them, have been awake the whole time, the kids would begin making noises; small ones at first, then progressively louder in an effort to awaken us naturally and not provoke righteous anger. Of course we always tried to refrain from laughing out loud until the strain was finally too much and we pretended to wake up. At the first sound from our bedroom, our sons immediately began ripping paper and enjoying their little victory. Kids will be kids, and ours were merely continuing a tradition that started way before I was born.

Seeing and hearing their joy prompts my prodigal memory to leave here and shift me even further back in time, to a generation where their father was one of the Smith children and their grandparents were young adults. There's never been a warmer, fuzzier place for me than my childhood home in Birmingham's suburban East Lake, just a few blocks westward from where I would later raise my own brood.

Christmas in those days was mostly fellowship and food, with our home full of laughing, hugging relatives. How Santa Claus managed to sneak in undetected while all us kids were lying on pallets next to the tree is beyond me to this day, especially since we'd stayed awake all night telling jokes and giggling. But the annual Christmas Day miracle always happened and that little gift opening game was virtually the same, except our elders made us sweat it out longer because we'd kept them up half the night threatening to take a belt to us.

Revisiting such times and people is an ecstatic, yet sweetly sad thing; vividly reliving the most pleasant moments of youth while knowing I’ll never see most of those folks and those happy days again in this life except in my mind’s eye, and in several albums of fading pictures.

That’s when I treasure total recall the most.

[elaine]

I've given our son a coin every Christmas for many, many years. A private little gift from Mom. Most of the coins are very old or very rare. I almost always get them from the coin shop in Oneonta. The owner (Patrick Fendley) knows I'll be there and usually has several special coins in mind for me to choose from. Part of the fun is deciding on the coin for that year.

This little tradition has evolved into very special memories. We look forward to it every Christmas.

[mandy]

We all show up at my mom's house for breakfast EVERY Christmas day, no exceptions. We eat, gossip, & wait to see which of us Big Mammaw will call Margaret all day long. It's usually me, but Jana's first husband, Clarence, did about a 4 year stint as "Horace", I believe. There is always one uppity delusional person who says that "she knows exactly who I am", but we know that they are as mentally lost as poor Big Mammaw is, so we shake our heads & mock them behind their backs. At least she remembers a Margaret. If she doesn't call you by name, you can rest assured she has no idea where she is, or who you are. I know to an outsider, this sounds mean. But we do love Big Mammaw a whole lot. This has been going on for decades, & if we don't laugh about it, we'll all just have to cry.. Except for the unfortunate moron who insists that Mammaw still knows them. This is usually the person who has done the least, or had the least contact with her out of all of us, and usually the one we are all gossiping about too. ;D

[tammy]

My Father-in-law always gave my children a special ornament each year. He passed away a few years ago. This year I have made the decision to pick this tradition back up and continue what he started.

[maxlillady]

I, too have done the monogrammed ornaments for 23 years. My intention was to give the kids theirs as they moved out to start their own decorating. It's not looking like that will happen any time soon. I've now added the grandchild to ornament list.LOL

[maxlillady]

Nov 29, 2009 21:41:09 GMT -5 @elaine said:

I've given our son a coin every Christmas for many, many years. A private little gift from Mom. Most of the coins are very old or very rare. I almost always get them from the coin shop in Oneonta. The owner (Patrick Fendley) knows I'll be there and usually has several special coins in mind for me to choose from. Part of the fun is deciding on the coin for that year.

This little tradition has evolved into very special memories. We look forward to it every Christmas.

Elaine, that is such a special idea. I love it.

[gloria]

Nov 29, 2009 22:13:49 GMT -5 mandy said:

We all show up at my mom's house for breakfast EVERY Christmas day, no exceptions. We eat, gossip, & wait to see which of us Big Mammaw will call Margaret all day long. It's usually me, but Jana's first husband, Clarence, did about a 4 year stint as "Horace", I believe. There is always one uppity delusional person who says that "she knows exactly who I am", but we know that they are as mentally lost as poor Big Mammaw is, so we shake our heads & mock them behind their backs. At least she remembers a Margaret. If she doesn't call you by name, you can rest assured she has no idea where she is, or who you are. I know to an outsider, this sounds mean. But we do love Big Mammaw a whole lot. This has been going on for decades, & if we don't laugh about it, we'll all just have to cry.. Except for the unfortunate moron who insists that Mammaw still knows them. This is usually the person who has done the least, or had the least contact with her out of all of us, and usually the one we are all gossiping about too. ;D

Mandy, my mawmaw was like that, like your family, we loved her so much. I haven't come to that yet, but if I live I probably will. I hope my children and grandchildren will be as loving to me as your family and my family was.

I always loved the words of "Julia Sugarbaker" on Designing Women who said, "We don't, as you put it, put our crazy relatives in the attic or cellars, we just parade them around on our front porch."

[gloria]

Nov 29, 2009 23:59:07 GMT -5 maxlillady said:

I, too have done the monogrammed ornaments for 23 years. My intention was to give the kids theirs as they moved out to start their own decorating. It's not looking like that will happen any time soon. I've now added the grandchild to ornament list.LOL

I divided up the ornaments from my children's childhood and divided them between my son and my daughter and they use them on their Christmas trees. I kept a few ornaments that my friends had given me and some I had collected in my travels, but I went back to the shiny glass ball ornaments of my childhood. I even found garland made like the shiny glass ones and this is what I decorate with now. It brings back wonderful memories of my childhood and all the fun my cousins and I had at our grandparents homes during the holidays. We loved sliding down the bannister from upstairs then running down the hall to the kitchen for breakfast. Such good memories.