More on Christmas Traditions by Courtney

Growing up, my Christmas’s were a little unorthodox.  I don’t remember ever having a Christmas tree.  I know we did because we have pictures, but I don’t remember any.  My dad claimed to be allergic to evergreen trees but I’m fairly sure at this point that both of my parents were just allergic to the mess and hassle of the Christmas season in general.

For years I remember using a wooden doll cradle as our “Christmas Cradle”.  Some friends of ours made it an annual tradition of theirs to decorate a Charlie Brown tree with baggies of Christmas Cookies and to deliver it to our little Grinch of a family.  Years later we children had decided we had had enough. When my parents were gone, we blew the dust off of the Christmas decorations and decorated the plastic ficus trees.  A new tradition was born.  Though once I left for college even that custom was forgotten in the fathoms of Scroogiosity.  The low point I think was when I came home for Christmas break my freshman year and our festiveness consisted of a paper drawing of a Christmas tree that I had taped onto a lamp in the living room.

Needless to say, the lack luster Christmas traditions made me a little less than passionate for the holiday in general.  My husband, however, grew up in a highly picture perfect family that seemingly lacked all traditional dysfunction.  Trying to mesh my lack of enthusiasm with his sunshine and lollipop Christmas memories wasn’t easy.  You should have seen how sad he was that first Christmas morning we spent together when he had nothing but candy in his stocking.  How was I supposed to know that most people put presents in their socks?  We certainly didn’t.  But over the years we have somehow made it work out.

I have given a little, and he has given a lot.  We managed to come up with our own family Christmas Traditions that contain the basic hallmarks of the season for him, and just enough dysfunction to placate my neuroses.

My favorite Christmas tradition by far is the Christmas Eve Feast.  This is the one that I can proudly proclaim that I brought into the family.  On Christmas Eve we would make a feast of Hor d’oeuvres for dinner.  Pigs in a blanket, chips and dip, cheese trays, crackers, shrimp cocktail, some crazy delicious Velveeta cheese dip, pate, deviled eggs and all sorts of sweets.  Once I was in charge of my own feast, I nixed the gross things (shrimp cocktail and pate) and kept the rest.  Over the years I realized that I wasn’t in fact, feeding an army and so I have whittled the menu down a bit.  I added some vegetables, subtracted most of the stuff that would cause an immediate heart attack, and kept only our most favorites.  This year I am quite looking forward to fruit and vegetable trays with homemade dip, pigs in a blanket (for him) and deviled eggs (for me).  We will feast while we read from the scriptures and then open one family present, which coincidentally, always contains a family movie that has just recently been released.  Last year it was Toy Story 3, this year it will be Kung Fu Panda 2.  The kids will fall asleep while I OD on deviled eggs.

This year I also look forward to watching the wonderful Bible videos that the church has recently released.  What a wonderful gift to the world!

A tradition I hope to start is one of service.  For my family, it’s difficult to remember Christ when we are focused so much on presents.  So we are keeping it small (not non-existent, just small).  I know some families who go all out on Christmas, and I’m happy that they have made it work, but for us, too big of a Christmas is a distraction.  The time that we spend watching Christmas movies or would have spent shopping for presents we will be spending on making diapers for Teeny Tears (http://teenytears.blogspot.com).  Lucy (my nine year old) also wants to start making rag dolls for the poor children in Africa.  We will be forgetting ourselves and getting to work.

Family traditions are a funny thing.  It seems that when you try and force something so that your holiday can be “picture perfect, no one ends up happy in the end.  I love how our family traditions have evolved into our own perfect little family celebration.  No one family’s Christmas looks just like someone else’s though I admit that our family Christmas usually looks more like the Griswold’s than the Baily’s, but that’s ok with me.   No matter what you do to make it special, just do what works!