Scribblings

Christmas Traditions Over The Years

When I was a child, we used to put our tree up around my birthday. I never minded that my birthday was close to Christmas because I always felt special. We put the tree up on or around MY day.

I can remember helping my parents put the ornaments on the tree. Some of them were special ones, specifically for my brother or my parents or me. One of mine was a doll, almost the size of a Barbie, wearing a beret, black blouse and red capris pants. My mother sprayed our tree with canned, artificial snow and so our ornaments were always crusted with white stuff. It smelled funky but our tree always looked beautiful, like it had just been snowed on.

We also had other decorations that we set out all over the house. I remember reindeer and a card sled that looked like it was made out of coat hanger wire. It looked pretty cool. My mom would put a mirror down and surround it with cotton so that it looked like snow. Then we had these little people and animal figurines that we?d set into the scene.

On Christmas Eve, we used to go to church services when I lived on Long Island. When we moved to Baltimore, we?d go look at the holiday lights in the neighborhood instead. My mother would make rice pudding for dessert and we?d leave out the traditional milk and cookies. We always got a nice note from Santa in the morning ? I found out later that was my Dad. We didn?t see his handwriting much so we were fooled for years. When we were really little, he would read ?The Night Before Christmas? to us but one year he refused and never read it to us again.

I asked my mother about that one time and she said he was probably embarrassed about his deaf speech. I don?t think that?s it, though, because my dad was never shy about using his voice in public and around hearing people. Maybe he thought we were too old for it. I haven?t asked him directly because in my family there were just some things you didn?t talk about. Don?t ask me to explain how I got it into my head not to ask him about it because I can?t.

When Rich and I got married, we wanted to start our own traditions. One of the first things we did was make our own ornaments. We painted some of them and cross stitched others. We saved every single ornament given to us the year after we married and so I must have a dozen ?First Christmas? ornaments. When the kids were born, we began collecting ornaments for them too.

Our traditions blended. I didn?t make rice pudding on Christmas Eve but I did make cookies and soda bread and we did go to Christmas Eve church services. We drove around and looked at holiday lights. Rich brought the Christmas pickle to the family. The idea was to hide this pickle ornament in the tree and whoever found it got to play Santa Claus on Christmas morning. We all had Santa hats and stockings stuffed to overflowing. I learned that socks and underwear was a good gift in my growing-up family but Rich was horrified and asked me never to give him that stuff as a Christmas present anymore. We didn?t spray fake snow on our trees. While we had living trees, we?d still put them up around my birthday. Rich liked to use tinsel and was so picky about it that it became his job. We would bake cookies and watch a different Christmas movie almost every day. If we weren?t watching movies, I was playing Christmas CDs. I took up the tradition of reading ?The Night Before Christmas? to the kids. Rich and I began a tradition when we moved to LI of ordering our Christmas dinner from a Chinese restaurant.

After Rich died, I felt lost ? like I didn?t have an achor. Half heartedly, I tried to keep the same traditions going but they were so painful I mostly just cried. We went to stay with Rich?s dad and wife over the holidays. We took our Christmas pickle there ? and accidentally left it there.

Then I married TB, who had his own Christmas traditions with his family.

Now our Christmas traditions are blending again. In 2002, TB and I bought our own artificial tree and set it up the day after Thanksgiving. We?d bought our own ornaments to go on the tree along with the kids? ornaments and some of my other older ones. I have at least 2 dozen Christmas CDs and also discovered two radio stations that play Christmas music 24/7. On Christmas Eve, we drove around and looked at the lights. We had a big crowd over for presents and different for both families and yet special. After our company left, we ordered in Chinese food.

Last year, I helped put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and we had a large gathering on Christmas day. I baked lots of cookies and bread. We ordered in ? you guessed it, Chinese food.

This year, it?s been much different. We got the tree up after Thanksgiving but I didn?t feel well enough to decorate it and the kids never seemed to want to. Linda ended up doing most of it. I haven?t baked a single cookie or loaf of bread. I?m thinking, yeesh, we didn?t drive around looking at lights last year and it would be a good idea to do it this year! I don?t want to lose all our traditions so I?m listening to the Christmas stations and playing my holiday CDs. We?re going to have Chinese food for dinner.

I still need to wrap Heidi?s presents.

This year, I want to take lots of pictures. I want to make sure I call my loved ones to wish them a Merry Christmas. I hope I feel as well on Christmas as I do now, which is to say considerably better than I have been lately!

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