Happily Ever After...for right now!: Holidays + Family = Tradition

Tis the season

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."

Andy Rooney

This year I spent a lot of time with my students talking about traditions. It went along with a unit we were studying, Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol. As a child, even as an adult I wasn't a huge fan of this story. But, it did force me to look back into my own memories and think about the traditions our family has always had - - isn't that what the point of Christmas is about?

Today my family and I started to prepare for our traditional family Christmas Eve get together. I cannot think of a Christmas Eve when our family didn't gather at one of our homes, make too much food, laugh at life, and enjoy the gift given to us - our family. This, of course, got me thinking about the past. Christmas has always been such a warm memory for me. It is always "home" in the utmost meaning of the word.

When my sisters and I were younger, my favorite memories always involved the being smashed into a bed with my sisters waiting for the perfect time to wake my parents up. We would yell at the top of our lungs that we were ready to get up...even if it was 5 AM in the morning. My parents would yell back that we had to go to back to sleep. It always seemed that we would do as we were told, and then my parents would come and wake us up. Of course, we had to wait in the bedroom until Mom had a chance to go and turn on the tree lights, set up the video camera, eat a cookie, and turn on the fireplace. My sisters and I would wait anxiously until we were told we could emerge. Our gifts would be set up in piles according to child. We always got a gift that was for all three of us. We would rush to rip open our goodies, share in delight at what Santa had brought, and watch as my mom chased behind us with trash sack picking up our wrapping paper messes. After gift were opened, Dad would always make us his special scrambled eggs breakfast with cinnamon rolls.

As we got older, our families grew, but we always stayed so close. Unfortunately, every other year we would lose our little ones to the dreaded "exes". Although I have always absolutely adored having the little ones around, the years that we didn't have them always became a different tradition. We would still have an awesome Christmas Eve with the kids. But, at 8 PM they would leave. We would go to midnight mass at our church, and the everyone would come and spend the night at my parents house. We would light a fire in the fireplace. My parents would go to bed, but my sisters and their husbands would stay the night. We spread out all over the family room - pillows, blankets, and giggling until we would all fall asleep. We would wake up early, eat breakfast, open gifts and then begin working on the big Christmas dinner. Being the youngest of my sisters, and with the age difference with us, having this was incredible to me. I loved these family traditions.

Our traditions have changed yet again, but the part that remains the same is that my family is together. Christmas Eve is still for the family to get together for our big event. We have begun making a theme for our meals...last year we had a fiesta...burritos, cheese enchiladas, homemade salsa...yum. This year is Italian! Our family has grown so much that the 10 and under kids get individual gifts and the rest of us have drawn names for families/households. I drew my nieces, Jordan and Jordyn. I am looking forward to seeing them open their gifts. We are also playing the white elephant game, and, of course, I am hoping my brother-in-law gets mine because he will LOVE it! I am looking forward to eating too much, taking a lot of pictures of my family together, and feeling the love we have for each other. It is the best night of the year.

After the festivities at my sister's house, we will travel back into Vegas. I will spend the night at my parents house. It becomes like a mini slumber party, we get Mason ready for bed, hope Santa comes, and snuggle down for our long winter nap. The morning will be quiet, but exciting as Mason still believes. With that innocence, it's hard to not get caught up in the magic. Breakfast will be on Dad again, scrambled eggs! I love that coming home is like never having left home. It's as sweet as it was always meant to be. Below are some memories from last year.

Merry Christmas from CoachB!