Tradition

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve and all I have left to do is make a pumpkin cheesecake. All the presents are wrapped, the house is all decorated. We're getting ready to open presents on the phone with our son and daughter-in-law in Washington. A new tradition for us when we can't all get together.

It's a very stress free holiday this year. No traveling, no big dinner to cook. We'll be visiting with friends today and tomorrow. In the morning we will open presents with my daughter and her friend Missy. Then a great big yummy breakfast. In the evening we will be off to visit friends.

Most years we go down to Southern California for Christmas. We celebrate with my parents on Christmas Eve and my husband's relatives on Christmas day. This year we both had to work and couldn't get away in the middle of the week. My son wasn't available to come down from Washington either. Our daughter is here packing and getting ready to move to New York the first week in January. So we decided to stay home and have a quiet holiday here on the Coastside. I must say I don't miss the stress of traveling on the holidays.

Having Christmas at home got me to thinking about traditions and how important they are in a family. We have a box in our xmas decorations marked "minimum Christmas." This is the box I get out if I know we're going to travel and not be home for the holidays. It's full of all our favorite ornaments and decorations, but takes minimum effort to put out. I still think it's important to set up some kind of tree and put out our favorite ornaments, even if we are not going to be home. I also have our stockings in there and bring them with us where ever we go to bring a little of home with us.

When we are home we open our gifts on Christmas morning and have big pancake breakfast. The stocking gifts are always wrapped in foil and they are the first thing we open. When the kids were little, Santa always left out one big unwrapped gift. The kids weren't allowed to go out before they woke up mom and dad. So we were always up at the crack of dawn. Before they could go out to the living room dad or mom would go out and turn on all the xmas lights and put the holiday music on. I would make sure the camera was ready to catch the joy in their eyes as they saw their fun surprises that Santa left. As adults we still do the stockings with everything wrapped in foil, but Santa doesn't leave the big gifts out anymore.

When we go to my mom's house on Christmas Eve, we have a white elephant gift exchange, El Pollo Loco caters our food and Santa in full regalia visits, hands out gifts and sings Christmas carols with everyone. Santa has been coming Christmas Eve to my mom's house since our son (the first grandchild) was about 1 years old. There's always a ton of people there. Mostly my relatives; sister, brother, in-laws, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and various people we've adopted over the years. Our friends that still live in Southern California know they can stop by my parents house and join in whenever we're there. It's always a good time.

Santa has always provided fun entertainment. When the kids were little, we would hide and watch him put out the presents and he never acknowledged that we were all watching. It was magical. As they got older he started passing out the gifts and joining in. The funniest time was when he brought Mrs. Claus. We think she was on the verge of full blown Alzheimer's and she had been nipping at the sherry before she got there. She threw the candy canes at people and made inappropriate comments. We were all roaring. I wish we had a video camera going that night.

Traditions are what make a family gathering special. Missy is a friend of our daughter and is staying with us right now. She said they always have roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding. My friend Aileen said they are starting a new tradition this year and will watch the movie "Fido" with their daughter every Christmas Eve. We always insist on everyone opening gifts one at a times, except the stocking which you can dump out and open up immediately. It's fun to see how each Christmas and other holidays change as each generation gets older. We all incorporate our favorites from our family and then create new ones. It's fun to watch my son and daughter-in-law start theirs. Next year my brand new nephew will about one and everything will be new to him and we can watch my sister start traditions with her new family. We gave him "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and my sister is reading it to him tonight. I used to read it to my kids every Christmas Eve. So I guess that's my nephews first tradition.

Please leave a comment and let me know what your favorite family traditions for the holidays are. I'd love to hear from you.

To all my friends and family and fellow blog readers; I wish you a very merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season.