Traditional Family Holiday and Christmas Traditions

The family I grew up in always practiced specific traditions for the holidays and especially Christmas. Now that I have my own family, although we are scattered somewhat, we still have traditions we follow for the holidays, including Christmas.

My siblings are all gone with the exception of one sister. She lives in a town about three hours from our home, where her two children also live. This sister will be celebrating Thanksgiving with her children. Our daughter and son-in-law live about 25 minutes from our home. We will be celebrating Thanksgiving day with them at our home. We will have a dinner with turkey and all the trimmings. It will be a day of visiting, recalling some of our earlier Thanksgiving days and giving thanks to God.

Our daughter is bringing an elderly gentleman so he will not have to spend Thanksgiving alone. I told her it was okay to invite him, and I am thrilled and proud that she wanted him to come. My daughter is a great helper; she promised she would help with the dinner. We will probably have ham for Christmas dinner, just for a diversion.
The weekend after Thanksgiving is when we begin decorating the house for Christmas. We have a four-foot, fiber-optic, table-top tree in our front picture window. Then we place lighted garland around the mantel of our gas-log fireplace. There are several small items we place around the house including candles.

Christmas is the really big celebration for us. If our church has a Christmas Eve service, we are sure to attend. Then we go home and watch some 'specials' that might be happening on TV. The presents for all who will come for 'dinner-plus' on Christmas day are waiting under the Christmas tree. I often play some Christmas carols on my Conn organ, and anyone who wants to sing can join in.

Christmas morning is a most happy, but busy time, as we prepare the ham, and all the trimmings that go with it. We usually have mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, tossed salad, a warm green vegetable, hot rolls and dessert. The dessert will most likely be pecan, apple or pumpkin pie. I may make one regular pie and another sugar-free, as my husband is diabetic.

There may also be some deviled eggs, plus some after-dinner mints. If this sounds like an old-fashioned, down-home dinner, that's exactly what it is. I like to keep our traditional Christmas patterned after my parents' traditions.

After dinner is finished, the dishes washed, dried and put away, we gather around the Christmas tree to open gifts. Someone, probably my daughter, will be Santa, as she sorts to give one gift to each person present. Then she will go around again with a second gift for each person. We have decided earlier that we would try to keep each person's gifts to a minimum of three. It seems in years past, that we tended to get carried away, with gifts stacked high around the Christmas tree. I wonder if we had a kind of guilt feeling for giving too much attention to gift giving instead of the real meaning of Christmas.

We each check out our gifts again, then we just rest and digest the wonderful Christmas fellowship we have.

Sources:
Personal knowledge