I know that I have not been a dedicated blogger over the past several months. There have been quite a bit of turmoil in my life. But putting that past me for the moment I would like to talk about Christmas traditions, specifically Christmas traditions in my family.
Firstly, you have to know that Christmas has always been one of the bigger holidays in my family. I mean its right up there with the 4th of July…lol. Sorry, that’s an inside joke. What I mean is that everyone participates and I can’t remember a time when we weren’t all together for Christmas. I’ll explain how we achieve that later.
Cookies
Probably one of my most favorite memories of Christmas when I was younger was going over to my Grandma’s house. She was a big Christmas cookie maker. We were allowed to make them from time to time and that was fun but I remember most was that in every room of the house there were plates of cookies. There was oatmeal with and without raisins, sugar cookies, shortbread, ginger snaps, wedding cake cookies, my all-time favorite the peanut butter cookie.
Now when I mean every room in the house this included the bathroom, I’m not kidding, don’t say yuk. You know that you would be in there taking a shortbread cookie right now. What was strange and very cool about the plates of cookies is that if you were in a room and took one; while your back was turned a new cookie would be there to replace the one you took. I know ……the coolest thing ever. I asked my Grandma how that happened and her response was that elves did it. There were these little figurines of elf-like creatures scattered around the house. There were actually tubs of cookies in each room that she used to fill the empty spot.
Pictures With Santa
Everyone has probably had their picture taken with Santa. It’s a big tradition in our family. There was one year when I was about 4 years old that I rode the train with Santa and had breakfast. I wished I had a copy of the picture of me with Santa that year. I looked nice with me all dressed up in a cute suit. Anyway, all of my cousins, brothers and such would get their picture with Santa every year. This was in Houston, we would all go down to Foleys downtown and look at the storefront windows and do the deed with Santa. My only claim to fame was that I never had a year where I was crying in Santa’s lap. Although my last picture with Santa was when I was 13 years old, believe me I was crying on the inside trying to act cool.
My kids had their picture taken with Santa for years as well. One year that sticks out was with “Bad Santa”, much like the movie of the same title. There was something wrong with this guy. I could never put my finger on it. He would talk to the kids a few seconds and then spin them around for the picture of them (startled look) and him with this hilariously fake smile and wave. A few days later, we read in the paper that he had been fired. We collected the article and put it with that photo for posterity.
A Time for Family
We have a big family Christmas and to make sure that everyone can participate we have it the weekend before Christmas. There is less of a hustle, don’t get me wrong, there’s still that same ol’ feeling that it’s Christmas day but with added benefits. I mean if some long lost cousin is visiting you can always stop by the local Walmart and pick them up something. If you don’t want to cook the Christmas goose you can head over to Joe’s Crab Shack or something festive.
Stockings Were Hung
Since I was a little kid, my family had Christmas at my Grandma house. Santa knew to come there and drop off my stuff there and leave things in my stocking. Now as I got older, Santa would bring my big stuff to my house and the stocking at my Grandma’s. Now how he could keep that straight I have no idea. Each of us had our own stocking that had a design on the front; mine had a glove, a baseball, and bat. Santa would leave all kinds of stuff in there. Now days, we have so many stocking that we have to lay them out on a table and Santa comes to my aunt’s house. I’m wondering if he knows where Bastrop Bayou is.
Christmas Golf
One of the rather fun traditions we have at Christmas is playing golf at Melrose Golf Course in Houston the night of our Christmas (the weekend before Christmas). Melrose has big lights so you can play at night. When we first started out I think only two of us had clubs. Now we all do. We have been not playing the past few years as Melrose was getting a facelift. But it is back open and we are ready to start up again.
New Traditions
Our newest tradition should start next year. Both my aunt and my parents are moving full-time down to live on Bastrop Bayou. They have a yearly lighted boat parade around the second weekend of December. That may make Christmas come a little earlier than before but with a higher level of entertainment value.
The thing with the boat parade is that you decorate your boat (in our case we have several boats) and you cruise down the bayou honking your horn and waving to the maddening crowd. We have enough people, that we can have a large boat group and enough to be the maddening crowd too. I am looking forward to it already. Come on 2010!!!