Christmas in My Home

Christmas has always meant family to me. I have never been away from home on Christmas day. It has become an expectation in our family to be together on Christmas. It's basically not even something that is discussed. We just plan on spending the holiday together. However, in our home, Christmas was not a big family gathering. It was just our immediate family. It was always my parents and my brother and me. As my grandmother aged and started living closer to us, she would spend Christmas with us as well. Since my brother got married he has alternated Christmases between our home and his wife's parents, but he and his wife always come home the day after Christmas.

Like many families, Christmas has always meant the sharing of gifts. It seems like in my family we wrap everything. My mother has always had the tradition of including many practical gifts at Christmas time; things such as toothpaste, batteries and socks. Even those get wrapped. Because all the little things are wrapped up at Christmas, we take a long time to open our gifts. Sometimes it takes us 3 or 4 hours to open everything. This has become a tradition in our home. Every person gets a turn to open a gift and it seems like we talk about every single thing that we each unwrap, evaluating and making comments and jokes about each gift given.

Since my brother got married, we have developed a new tradition. On the years where he and his wife spend Christmas day with her family, we wait until the day after Christmas, when they come to be with us, to open the presents. My parents and I might share one gift together on Christmas morning, to have a small celebration, but the major time of opening gifts together as a family now waits until the day after Christmas. Essentially, when they come down to be with us the day after Christmas we postpone our entire celebration for one day. It's simply like we celebrate Christmas a day later. However, as a result of establishing this new tradition, it has actually enriched our family's Christmas celebration. Christmas day has taken on a much quieter, reflective quality in the years that my brother and his wife are not with us. It has become a sober and more solemn day of celebration for us, while the excitement builds for our big family day. Perhaps, in a small way, it reflects the anticipation that existed in the world on that very first Christmas day.