I look at this picture and think, "Oh my goodness, my baby is growing up and FAST!" Where did the time go? That picture was 2 Christmas's ago and what I have taught her since then? It must be the magic of the holiday season that gets us wondering what traditions we grew up with and what traditions we will start with our new families. So I starting thinking, what traditions did we look forward to every Christmas in my house when I was younger? I know we didn't open any Christmas presents on Christmas Eve like I know some families do...But we did feast! And we went to church. We weren't raised Catholic but my dad was, so we always went to midnight Christmas mass to witness the true celebration of Christmas. And we did so on a full stomach of appetizers like tuna stuffed olives, veggies & dip and other finger foods that my mom always prepared. A definite highlight!
In our house, you always had to wait until Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought. Oh yes, there is a tradition, some of our gifts were from Santa, not just Mom & Dad, or Sally or Sue. From Santa! And usually the largest gift was from Santa. And there was always one big one for all of us to share, like a board game, Nintendo game or something like that (boy I am dating myself here).
We each had to take turns ( either 3 or 5 of us depending on what stage of childhood we are talking about) opening a gift. Patiently we waited until our turn came around again to be able to open our next gift. And the gifts only came after the stockings were opened! We could spill out our stockings all together, without waiting for "Santa Dad" to be ready for gift distribution.
I think like in most households, after presents was breakfast! Always a yummy breakfast before getting ready for Christmas Day. We always had to dress up on Christmas day, no slouchers allowed!
As I was writing this post and thinking of my family traditions, the one thing that stood out the most was the midnight Christmas mass, not the gifts or the food or even the dressing up. Nope. The midnight mass. This obviously is a meaningful tradition and forces me to think about what traditions I should be starting in my own family.
Will we go to a Christmas mass? Will we let her open a gift on Christmas Eve? Will she have to dress up after breakfast? And what handmade-homemade things will we always do together?
The list could go on and on and but today I realized that she is old enough for us to start creating these traditions for her and for her fond memories. Who knows, maybe some day she will be writing a blog post like this about her childhood Christmas traditions!
