Holiday Traditions
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RSS FeedI’ve been telling people about our holiday traditions lately and I thought it would make a good post.
Some people decorate their Christmas trees with the same ornaments, like all red balls and silver ribbon. I scoff at those people (sorry). My mother’s tree, and now mine, are a culmination of 45 years of collecting. Every time we go on a trip we get an ornament. She still has the tacky Charlie Brown ornaments I painted with that awful sticky paint 25 years ago. The God’s Eye one of my brothers made. The plastic Santa and reindeer that topped one of my father’s cakes 30 years ago. And I love it all.
I love that each ornament takes me to the place we bought it. The kiosk in Holland. The RiverWalk in San Antonio. Tarpon Springs. And I look forward to the day that Max (or maybe his significant other) will want to take some of them for his own tree, just like I did when I went off to college.
What about you? How does your family celebrate the holidays? What are your traditions?
One Comment
1.
Tracy commented on December 15, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I have to admit to liking those trees that are all uniformly decorated, but don’t do it in my house. Perhaps when I have my business and an office, I can do that, but not yet.
Our tree is also a mishmosh, with most of the ornaments being scavenged from my mom’s collection when she downsized her decoration bins. There are some that I’m not completely fond of (either bought for fillers when mom would get giant trees or bought for us when we were first married), and those will be replaced eventually. There are some handmade ornaments on there, as well as my first ornament that my grandmother bought for me when I was born.
Other traditions we follow are writing letters to Santa, due on St. Nicholas’ Day (Dec. 6, in our house), when they are picked up and small treats are left in the stockings. Then on Christmas Eve, we go out driving and looking at Christmas lights, and when we return, Santa and the reindeer have been there and left the presents. We leave milk and cookies, of course, but also a bucket of oatmeal for the reindeer (who are very messy eaters… they always leave some on the floor and the bucket knocked over). Feeding the reindeer is a favorite for Da Boyz.