(22 Weeks)
Aside from having a Christmas tree and decorating the house inside and out somewhere between Thanksgiving and mid-December, I haven’t had any traditions for this time of year that have stuck. No special dishes carried down from when I was a kid, nor consistency in who’s gathered around the table. Any tradition I’ve tried to start has been short-lived.
I’ve also have this love-hate relationship with the holidays.
When I was a kid, we had big celebrations which my parents hosted that included grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins (although they were much older than me). We would decorate a grand (although artificial) tree in the living room in a beautiful gold theme that was likely inspired by my mother’s Haviland Madison china.
Overnight on Christmas Eve, my parents snuck in a real tree for the family room, and decorated in the wee hours, to create the illusion that Santa brought it along with all the gifts. What fun they must have had. Those were good years.
But by my eighth birthday my grandparents were gone. By then too, my cousins were adults, and their family stopped making the trip from Long Island. I also found all the presents under my parents’ bed, so Santa was a myth. And after Christmas 1974, my Aunt Francie’s last Christmas (she died of cancer the following spring), it just came down to me, my parents, and Aunt Eileen and Uncle Joe.
I was just a bored pre-teen and teen, and eventually twenty-something coming home for the holidays, who would have preferred holidays with friends. After I was married in 1993, things only got more complicated as we had in-laws to work around or include.
The holidays became fun again after my daughter arrived in 2000 and we got to play Santa, staying up too late to create that illusion for her. And I created tradition in the holiday photo cards, the matching Christmas PJs, the dividing the days family gatherings in ways that worked for everyone – sort of. Thankfully, everyone tolerated one another despite obvious differences.
My dad died when she was six and like my childhood memories, I began to see the holiday traditions familiar to her slip away. Chris had stopped talking to his brother (and quite frankly I got sick of being the intermediary for their family and gave up trying to assure they were all together for the holidays).
Christmas 2007, our first year in Ramsey, is a nice memory. My mom was living with us and Chris had a brief reconciliation with his dad, so he joined us on Christmas Eve, his mom on Christmas Day. We continued to play Santa, although by then, I’m pretty certain she was no longer a believer. There were the Home for the Holidays parades down Main Street that ended with Santa and hot chocolate at the fire house we did for many years. Some very cold. One year was warm; another it snowed. The December after Chris died it rained and that was that.
When my mom came to live with us, her china came with her. Although I have my own china (Lenox Maywood), for Christmas I preferred my mother’s with the gold trim. After, both my mom and Chris were gone, I put my Lenox away for my daughter and made my mother’s my own.
While we spent the next few Christmases escaping ghosts of Christmas’ past, and then ultimately moving 800 miles away, I’m still not a big fan of the holidays. But in some effort to maintain at least one tradition, I insist we use my mother’s china – that beautifully simply gold leaf trimmed porcelain on which holiday dinner was served to my grandparents and later my daughter – no matter who is around the table.
Perhaps I have a long standing holiday tradition that links several generations after all.
Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.
