November 19th 2014
Happy Birthday Mom.
When I moved to London in 1987,
I began my own Christmas traditions in my own apartment.
In 1991, the traditions changed when I married John.
In 2001 we happily changed our traditions again when we adopted Judy.
It does not seem so long ago that I traveled home at whatever time I could to get to my Grannie's house for Christmas Eve.
Not so long ago I hosted the "practice run" Christmas dinner in our townhouse.
Nor does it seem so long ago that we traveled to Thorndale to John's Grannie's apartment every boxing day.
And now I am a year away from making changes again for Christmas
When I moved out, my mother and I used to have a race to see who would have their tree up first. Her birthday is Nov 19th and hers was usually up by then. I always beat her getting my cards out, but not often did I win the race for the first tree.
There is something relaxing about sitting and watching the twinkling lights of a tree.
I choose to have as many as I can.
According to the "values worksheet" we did...... THIS tradition is important to me. So, with a snowy evening ahead of us, Judy decided it was a good idea, to get the trees set up and lit before ANY more decor came upstairs.
By 8pm I had 7 trees assembled and 2 were lit.
I find Christmas traditions interesting. No 2 families have the exact set of traditions even if they are doing the same thing!
***I started this part of the blog and decided to expand on it***
For me Advent used to mean:
beautiful purple and pink candles at church in a wreath
and a cardboard calendar with a little chocolates counting down the days until Christmas.
It was a time of excess in our family,
it meant a new outfit for Christmas Eve,
a huge turkey dinner (and a steak for Dad),
it meant cleaning Grannie's messy silverware chest,
and each having a 2L pop of our choice.
So much food!
we had lazy Susan's full of candy,
and cookies by the case,
and Aunt Laura NEVER had all her gifts wrapped.
It meant Christmas Day the adults had a fondue,
while us kids had a dinner table set with junk food!
It meant Christmas eve mass,
and candlelight ceremonies,
and a choir singing hymns.
The ride back to Grannie's included a quick tour of light displays in the snow,
reading the night before Christmas,
having white Christmas play in the background
and not opening gifts until Grannie's clock struck midnight
AND EVERYONE had said Merry Christmas and kissed each other.
It meant all of us gathered and exchanging gifts with each other.
It also meant buying a garbage can for Grannie (every year) and getting chosen to stomp the torn up Christmas paper into it.
It meant coming home at 3am from Grannie's and finding out Santa had already been to our house!
The fun of begging Dad to stay up and open gifts!
and him finally giving in and making a coffee.
The fun of being buried alive by wrapping paper!
I miss those Christmases. If my parents did nothing else (they did but if they hadn't)
I have the greatest memories of holidays as a child, but especially Christmas!
What is your favourite holiday memory? Can you make it happen one more time? My family is now too scattered to be able to have that amazing Christmas feeling again. BUT....... I can pass on the tree challenge to my daughter.
Maybe it is time to look at adding a new tradition to your holiday.
Many of us are just reaching the empty nest stage,
some of my friends are even experiencing the empty grandchildren nest!
I never want to forget how wonderful my christmases were. So if I only touch one person, and remind them of past happy holidays with my 10 trees, then it was worth the work putting them up.
I am excited that soon I can sit in my living room with just the tree lit and relax. The meaning of Christmas is in our hearts, the tree is just an expression for me.
And so another 8 traditions YOU could start this year...
Happy Birthday Mom.
When I moved to London in 1987,
I began my own Christmas traditions in my own apartment.
In 1991, the traditions changed when I married John.
In 2001 we happily changed our traditions again when we adopted Judy.
It does not seem so long ago that I traveled home at whatever time I could to get to my Grannie's house for Christmas Eve.
Not so long ago I hosted the "practice run" Christmas dinner in our townhouse.
Nor does it seem so long ago that we traveled to Thorndale to John's Grannie's apartment every boxing day.
And now I am a year away from making changes again for Christmas
When I moved out, my mother and I used to have a race to see who would have their tree up first. Her birthday is Nov 19th and hers was usually up by then. I always beat her getting my cards out, but not often did I win the race for the first tree.
There is something relaxing about sitting and watching the twinkling lights of a tree.
I choose to have as many as I can.
According to the "values worksheet" we did...... THIS tradition is important to me. So, with a snowy evening ahead of us, Judy decided it was a good idea, to get the trees set up and lit before ANY more decor came upstairs.
By 8pm I had 7 trees assembled and 2 were lit.
I find Christmas traditions interesting. No 2 families have the exact set of traditions even if they are doing the same thing!
***I started this part of the blog and decided to expand on it***
For me Advent used to mean:
beautiful purple and pink candles at church in a wreath
and a cardboard calendar with a little chocolates counting down the days until Christmas.
It was a time of excess in our family,
it meant a new outfit for Christmas Eve,
a huge turkey dinner (and a steak for Dad),
it meant cleaning Grannie's messy silverware chest,
and each having a 2L pop of our choice.
So much food!
we had lazy Susan's full of candy,
and cookies by the case,
and Aunt Laura NEVER had all her gifts wrapped.
It meant Christmas Day the adults had a fondue,
while us kids had a dinner table set with junk food!
It meant Christmas eve mass,
and candlelight ceremonies,
and a choir singing hymns.
The ride back to Grannie's included a quick tour of light displays in the snow,
reading the night before Christmas,
having white Christmas play in the background
and not opening gifts until Grannie's clock struck midnight
AND EVERYONE had said Merry Christmas and kissed each other.
It meant all of us gathered and exchanging gifts with each other.
It also meant buying a garbage can for Grannie (every year) and getting chosen to stomp the torn up Christmas paper into it.
It meant coming home at 3am from Grannie's and finding out Santa had already been to our house!
The fun of begging Dad to stay up and open gifts!
and him finally giving in and making a coffee.
The fun of being buried alive by wrapping paper!
I miss those Christmases. If my parents did nothing else (they did but if they hadn't)
I have the greatest memories of holidays as a child, but especially Christmas!
What is your favourite holiday memory? Can you make it happen one more time? My family is now too scattered to be able to have that amazing Christmas feeling again. BUT....... I can pass on the tree challenge to my daughter.
Maybe it is time to look at adding a new tradition to your holiday.
Many of us are just reaching the empty nest stage,
some of my friends are even experiencing the empty grandchildren nest!
I never want to forget how wonderful my christmases were. So if I only touch one person, and remind them of past happy holidays with my 10 trees, then it was worth the work putting them up.
I am excited that soon I can sit in my living room with just the tree lit and relax. The meaning of Christmas is in our hearts, the tree is just an expression for me.
And so another 8 traditions YOU could start this year...
- Don't send cash in the mail
- Sometime during the holidays, go through your closet. Donate useable clothing to a shelter
- To save some time, order from local home based catalogs
- Get a call from Santa https://www.dialmycalls.com/santa-calls.html or arrange for a friend to do it for you
- Line you walk or drive with paper luminaries. Put 2" of sand in the bottom to hold the votive in place.
- Record addresses in your (new?) phone book as cards arrive to ensure you have the most current addresses
- When you are with a child and see a red light in the sky, always ask them if they think that is Rudolph
- Always allow extra travel time during the holidays to account for traffic
Good night and Merry Christmas!
You have such fond memories. Love to hear about them.
ReplyDeleteOf the suggested ones to start, don't send money in the mail reminded me of my aunt & uncle's tradition.
Each year they would buy gifts for my girls that were beautiful but never fit and cost more in postage than they were worth. They lived in northern England.
So uncle Tom decided to go to his bank or whatever society and order Canadian money. And, yes, he traditionally would send $40 to me to buy the girls presents from them. Knowing the money was coming I'd get the gifts along the way. As a single mom it really helped out. Then the money would go back into the kitty.
While getting xmas boxes sorted this year I was reading old cards deciding it was time to purge. Picking up an old card from 1989, 25 years ago, out pops $40!!!!
That tradition has stopped long ago ss the girls grew. Uncle Tom has passed away. It seemed like a good tradition at the time....
Thanks for your blog. It gave me a poke to think back. As I read I envied you for all your family traditions but in the end you challenged me. With grandchildren coming we can start our own. It's a new beginning
Thanks