Extra, Extra Santa’s on this way!
Extra, Extra Santa’s on this way! And all the fun things that Christmas brings. Today’s article is going to be about traditions I touched on them in last week’s blog post Warning it’s the time of year
But wanted to go a bit more into holiday traditions and what they mean to you and your family. How they bind you and strengthen you through good times and bad.
By sharing a few, of my own- though my sons are grown now, and Christmas is vastly different than when they were kids. I took into my own family those traditions that in many ways I could not grasp at the time I was learning them.
A mom who would fill our stockings with all the usual but, also add nuts and an orange and apple even though we had them sitting in the middle of the dining room table. As kids I used to toss them away without a thought, a child that could have fruit anytime she wanted, had no use for such things.
I finally after years of removing the space taker uppers from being able to add better goodies, in my teens asked WHY? Was this always done? My mom told me when she was young fruit and nuts were also plentiful. I knew she grew up surrounded by citrus and apple trees. But her mom did the same thing to her stocking. She told me when my grandma was young food of any kind was scarce a product of the Dust Bowl and the not so Great Depression her young years were spent on the road to CA picking fruit and doing whatever to get by. No jobs no home, a real Grapes of Wrath existence.
So to get the luxury of fruit and nuts when they could, manage to give anything for Christmas to the children that survived, was like a miracle in itself. Grandma told mom, that more than once adults went without food to make that happen.
You can bet even as a teenager I got that one and it brought home the true meaning of Christmas. The willingness of parental love to not fight in a toy isle for an overpriced piece of junk that will not last the new year, or max out a credit card you do not have the money to pay off in 30 days just to make sure that your kid’s want list is under the tree. But that there are parents who go without to provide something special, something marvelous and rare on this special day, just to see the wonder in their children’s eyes as they find Santa did remember them.
If that was not a big enough lump in my throat, my mom expanded that her mom told her they used to share an apple and they did it in reverse youngest ate first and with 11 children (though only 9 lived to adulthood) the older children were lucky to get at the core. So your own apple, can you imagine? No I can’t either but I took that tradition on into my own home and though I got looks and the fruit was tossed away in favor of more desirable goodies, I smiled that my kids could not imagine it either.
My upbringing and awareness of my grandma’s history has made it a yearly undertaking that we always help out someone, we always remember our good fortune and drop something in every kettle we see. My sons have continued that generosity and tradition. One year my youngest son saw someone out in the cold ringing his bell with hardly a light jacket. So we went back into the store and came out with an all-weather jacket and gloves that we gave him. The smile and Merry Christmas was priceless and we left him with a simple wish- pay it forward.
These traditions have made us strong and yours should do the same they should bathe you in warmth and bring joy to you, and your family. Be it opening brand new jammies on Christmas Eve, caroling with your church, your best homemade eggnog recipe that has been in your family so far back you lose count. Remember the importance in that you are making memories but, you are also laying a foundation that will proceed you.
Another tradition from my childhood that sadly I did not keep up after my kids got older as they did not want to sit through a story that I failed to be able to bring to life, in the same magical way my dad did with us each year. So I let it go and then I lost the homemade book my dad had made of the story I was the care taker of. The book was Cynthia and The Unicorn.
But this being the first Christmas in so many years that my dad is without my mom, since we lost her to cancer. And also my brother who lives locally is going to be out of town with his own son. So since my dad is in San Diego and us in Vancouver and we cannot be there, so dad will be alone. I got to thinking about how to make his Christmas better.
I cannot fill the empty spot that mom occupied for over 57 years. But I did think about when we were kids, the joy he got in reading us that story every year and how we would pretend we did not know what was coming as he always made it so exciting and we sat there wide eyed and mesmerized.
So I hunted up the Cynthia and The Unicorn book online and purchased it. After reading it as it had been years, and smiling as it brought back my own memories. I hurried her off on loan to hopefully lighten my dad’s holiday when he sees, not his book, but at least the, book that he had with vivid voices and sudden surprises made come to life every Christmas as Cynthia pursued her unicorn, and the Christmas message that book conveys.
In hopes that a family tradition he started would come full circle to enable him to be at peace in though mom is gone, his memories are not and she lives on as does he in those words in those traditions that we pass down that you pass down as do your parents and your grandparents and people you never met- your traditions are rooted in, and that is one important gift not under the tree this year, but in your heart every, year.
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