I’m sure we all have things we do annually. Like maybe driving around to see holiday light display. Let’s share!
One of our local small town museums has a Festival of Trees. I have been making a tree for my volunteer organization for about 10 years, and I always go to the actual festival which runs for three weeks. This year, there are 139 items, trees, small trees, centerpieces, wreaths, etc. They don’t charge admission but they do sell teacup auction tickets…and there is a drawing the final day for everything donated.
This year, I invited my daughter to join me for lunch and the tree fest. I’m thinking it was a hit with her as she took a video which she sent to a good friend telling her it was a “must do” outing.
It’s nice that the next generation is now going to see these trees. And will spread the word.
Here is the tree I made. Cookies for Santa. It’s covered with cookie cutters.
We have a few fireplaces and told our kids (now adults) that we never knew which chimney Santa would use so better safe than sorry and would decorate them all….
We play the same CD (yes, dinosaurs) every year. My absolute two favorites, and my kids’ too, are Christmas Time in Harlem and It Happened in Sun Valley.
It has to be these versions.
Our other main tradition is that we decorate our tree with ornaments from all our vacations. We have ornaments from China, Morocco, Thailand, Mexico, Canada, and all over the US and Europe. Decorating the tree takes ages because we spend a lot of time talking about our vacations.
This year I am super excited because my daughter is going to be home for the first time in six months. She lives overseas now and my son is a college senior. It’s bittersweet to think they might not be home for Christmas in the near future
Many of our traditions are now changing because they were centered around our family of 4. Now they are scattering. And this year we are going to Austria for 10 days over Xmas. We used to always make Xmas roll out/cut cookies together. We make many weird non Xmas themed cookies and heap them with food colored icing and sprinkles. We also Nick name them crack cookies because they are deliciously addicting, but they’ll never be picture magazine worthy. But they won’t happen this year.
I did still put up both of my “Memory Xmas trees,” because I do love them, younger S’ GF has never seen them and will be here before we leave, and our cats love the Xmas tree skirts, especially the upstairs tree. Every year, I seem to try to take a picture of my big tree and it never seems to do it justice. This year is no exception. Between the two trees I probably have 1000 ornaments ranging from generic Walmart/Lowe’s to homemade to places we have been (that’s always my souvenir) to all of the picture ornaments I make of/for the kids every year.
And speaking of pictures, I always send a Xmas card and letter. But this year I won’t send it until after Xmas as I want to use our trip as inspiration/pictures. But a few years ago, I did make them into a table runner for our dining room where we eat all our meals. In the background is the little tree my MIL made me eons ago out of a coat hanger. It’s one of my favorites.
Since I’m too lazy to type it up, here’s a picture. My mom got it from an ad in a 1960s magazine. At some point she typed it up and gave us all a copy. You can tell it’s seen a lot of years. If I have grandkids, I will definitely make them with them. And older S and GF made them for themselves last year.
My favorite Christmas tradition is making cookies. For many years growing up my Great Aunt Edith made hundred and hundreds of cookies which she mailed to all her nieces and nephews. (Her own son died in World War II.) I keep up the tradition and a few years ago when my brother challenged me to write sonnets, I wrote a sonnet about it. (He has since trounced me in the sonnet writing department.) Everyone’s favorite was her Secret cookies which for a long time were a secret recipe. Rumors are that it was secret because she just got the recipe from a box of confectionery sugar. Or maybe it was the extra tablespoon beyond the two sticks of butter. She said the secret was that she made them smaller than most people. They are a fairy standard recipe of ground almonds, butter and sugar in crescent shapes.
Here’s the sonnet:
12/26/2020
Secret Cookies
For years my Great Aunt Edith was a tin
Of cookies. Aromas of December
Holidays, that much I can remember.
But I’m no Proust whose scented Madeleine
Spewed like a literary waterfall.
She said the secret of them was their size
I grind the almonds and I knead the dough.
I think I know now, where that secret lies
The secret was the secret, not the size at all.
My family’s scattered, just like long ago.
I do know one secret that’s now unfurled,
the secret that passed from aunt to mother,
binds one generation to another
It’s cookies flying all around the world.
Some traditions that stand out:
All three kids decorating the sugar cookies while listening to Christmas music of Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey and of course, Sesame Street.
Candles in the front windows of our many windowed home with a spotlight on them and two lighted trees in front. People in the neighborhood comment on this every year.
Stockings not hung until Christmas Eve. Friendly arguements ensue over the arrangement on the fireplace. LOL
Everyone opens stockings and gifts ONE.AT.A.TIME - it takes forever but we all love it.
Christmas extended family includes “Secret Santa” gifts that must come wrapped in a newspaper that anyone can get (like USA Today, NYT). Christmas spread is a spread of heavy appetizers.
My family has a Swedish Christmas Eve every year. It’s been that way for as long as I’ve been alive. All the children get new pajamas that they change into after the traditional smorgasbord. Then the kids open a few presents while the adults sip Glogg or Aquavit.
My favorite tradition that we do is a book advent calendar. We open a holiday or winter-themed book each night in December leading up to Christmas and read it together as a family. I wrap each book in tissue paper each year and put them in a basket that sits on our fireplace and the kids still love the tradition, even though they are getting older now and have outgrown picture books. I sometimes rotate new books in to change things up as they get older, but we keep a lot of the same ones in rotation and the nostalgia it evokes for all of us is so much fun. I purposefully curated books about holidays from many different religions and countries so we could learn about traditions outside of our own, and those have always been a big hit. I hope they will still love it as they get older, because I never want to stop!
