We try to keep traditions going in the family, it's a great way for everyone to remember holidays and other family gatherings. You may not even really like some traditions, but you know you can count on it.
Growing up in my house we knew as long as we believed in Santa he brought you Christmas presents...I believed for a LONG time. (In a way I still believe, "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus). My girls are the same way, they are 12 and 14 and they even help to make Santa real since currently times are tough. They would rather say the gift is from Santa than lay claim themselves.
I remember 11pm candle light church service on Christmas Eve. I can still not play "Silent Night" without any mistakes. It was the first piece I played on the piano for church, and I froze. But it all worked out, our church organist pointed out each key and I made it through.
Easter was another fun one. Waking up for Sunrise service. Breakfast afterwards cooked by the men of the church. Going in the kitchen for Pastor to make a pancake shaped like your initial, making sure I got my father's eggs. My mom would go home first to hide the eggs. Even when we were still in high school she would do that for us, we insisted after all. It isn't Easter without an egg hunt.
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I am trying to promote many of the same traditions for my girls. Our church does not do an 11pm service Christmas Eve or a Sunrise service on Easter but we go to church those days and both my girls are very active in those services. Santa finds his way here every Christmas and the Easter Bunny has gotten very good at hiding those eggs. Though, this Easter my eldest will be away with her band. When I told her it was over Easter she said she will have to get some friends together and bring some plastic eggs to hide in their hotel rooms. They may think she's insane, but they will have a lot of fun if they do it.
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We added Resurrection Eggs to our Easter traditions. After dinner we open them up and walk through the story of Christ's entrance into Jerusalem, trial, death, and resurrection. Depending on how many people are over for dinner depends on how many eggs everyone gets to open.
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I hope my girls enjoy their family traditions and keep some of them going. :)
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Comments: 34
I say we didn’t go to church. We didn’t go to Sunday Mass. I went to church on Wednesday evening, Conformation classes. I liked church OK as a kid, people glad to see me, ushering me into something much bigger than myself. I have no memory of my first communion, though I know I had one.
My mother would decorate the house, top to bottom. In the sixties, she made most of the decorations, large cardboard rolls wrapped in foil becoming large candles for either side of the fireplace. She glued pinecones and ribbons on the face of record album covers, taping them to the spindles going up the stairs.
Spray snow painted careful triangles on the windows. A large bowl of mixed nuts, with a nutcracker, found its way to the table. I didn’t know what nuts had to do with Christmas. I do today.
My mother would bake cookies. Bourbon balls were my favorite, a rich ball, walnutty cookie rolled in confectioner’s sugar. She’d always manage to overcook the peanut butter cookies, their bottoms blackened. I liked them, anyway, missing the black bottoms in store-bought.
I remember often having snow for Christmas week, always being cold, no doubt we were in winter. One year, we hit seventy degrees on Christmas Day, a promise from the universe that the universe is askew regardless of appearances.
My mother would prepare three boxes of cookies, carefully wrapped, a tag: From Santa. In the cold grasp of evening shadow, we’d place the boxes on the porches of three elderly women, who lived alone. With the doorbell rung, we’d scurry away.
As a child, immersed in a world of magical thinking, I thought Santa Claus the most wonderful, beautiful person/idea in creation. Imagine: here’s a person, a being of some kind, who gives freely and generously, never expecting anything in return.
To me, that’s the definition of a true gift: never expecting anything in return. No karma attached.
Christmas morning, there I sat, surrounded by bounty and no one to thank. Not being able to return the favor, not being able to say thank you can disarm, disempower. Much later in life, I learned to accept gifts in return, but that’s another story.
Dragons live forever, not so little boys.
Life, as life does, turned, events tumbling us into poverty, leaving the house and the neighborhood behind.
With just a couple calendars falling to the floor, me throwing in with an older crowd, a friend and I baked cookies. Neophytes that we were, the cookies weren’t as pretty as my mothers. They were tasty enough. Giggling from too much Green Cream de Menthe, we prepared three boxes of cookies, carefully wrapped, a tag reading: From Santa.
Joyce navigated her old clunker along the icy roads, repeating: I hate driving in the winter, until we reached my old neighborhood. My stomach swam when I saw my old house dark, no lights, no decorations of any kind.
“This is going to be so cool.” I made the promise, climbing from the car, the prizes in hand.
I was, by most accounts, a child at the time. Life’s events forced a quick temper on me, me feeling more like an adult than a child. My barely fledged adult feet touched the sidewalk where the child’s had. For a breath, I was a child again, the dark events of recent history erased. I knew I could turn, see my house decorated, my mother happy, smiling, watching from our porch.
I stopped, frozen.
There, at the foot of the door, already sat a carefully wrapped box.
For christmas as a child we all ment at my grandparents house on christmas eve my dad and my uncle's family . now that I'm married my grandmother after my grandfather died use to spend thanksgiving with us and christmas. So I'm sure she will still be in the nursing home this year. Our church always has something for christmas a play derserts, we even go chritmas caroling to the old people who can't get to church anymore we even went christmas caroling to my grandmother a few years ago while she was still at home. we even have gone christmas caroling at nursing homes they really like that. I also tell my kids the real meaning of christmas is that jesus christ was born.
For Easter our church even has a sunrise breakfast and we go to that. Our church even does a new years bash at the church for the kids and the parents we had so much fun playing CATCH A PHASE it is like sharades only you have to decrible a word. we usually have a dinner once a month at church. The kids even have cooked and put on valentines day dinners for parents we do father and son breakfast, mother daughter banquats. They say around where I live that Baptist like to eat. We even have a simmer picnic at the end of summer and had a neat game we played.
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I think she would enjoy that.