Family Traditions at Christmas Time

Traditions are the glue that sticks families together. Many traditions are passed down from one generation to another but a new one can be started at any time. In our family we have many that have been passed down although they may have been altered somewhat over the years. My family, like many families, is very serious about its traditions.

Christmas Eve is the day our family gets together for our special holiday season dinner. The menu never changes because that is one of our very important Christmas traditions. The ‘absolutely-do-not-ever-change’ items are Rolladen, pickled red cabbage, cooked garlic sausage, potato salad, brussell sprouts, pickled beets and pickled herring. I can add other items, and do, without too much harassment. And although many of our family dinners are now buffet-style, our Christmas Eve dinner is always a sit-down one even though we now number twenty-four.

After dinner and everything has been cleared away, it is gift opening time. A volunteer Santa gives out the gifts to the children first before the adults open their gifts. Because our family has grown so large, it now takes us over two hours to open all of the gifts. While we open our presents, we play Christmas music in the background.

Before Christmas we have traditions that are child oriented. They are ones that I did with my own children and which I now continue to do with my grandchildren. My parents did a few of them with my brothers and me. Some of them are:

- the children decorate gingerbread houses, gingerbread trains and gingerbread men;
- they help to make cookie dough and then decorate the cookies before baking;
- we do various Christmas crafts – i.e.: decorate snowmen and snowflakes, etc.;
- the children help to decorate the tree with gobs of tinsel hung on each branch;
- we go to see the annual Santa Claus parade;
- they write a letter to Santa;
- we visit Santa at the Mall;
- go Christmas caroling in the neighborhood;
- drive around and look at Christmas lights;
- and go to advertised local Christmas activities.

Because these traditions have been part of my children’s and grandchildren’s lives from very early ages, they will in all likelihood continue many of them with their own families. I have seen it with my own children. Last year on Christmas Eve day we had an unusually heavy snowfall. I worried about my family driving in terrible conditions and suggested that we postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations until the roads were better. None of my five children agreed with me. They all insisted that we can’t postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations. Thankfully everyone arrived safely and as expected, we all had a wonderful time.

Another holiday season tradition is our New Year’s Day dinner out at a restaurant. It is relatively new to our family as we have only been doing it for about ten years. It is practical in that after all the festivities of the Christmas season and New Year’s Eve celebrations no one is particularly anxious to host a New Year’s Day dinner as well.

This year I have written our first annual family newsletter which I hope will become another family tradition. (It will be an end-of-the-year newsletter) I interviewed each of the grandchildren and put what they wanted to say into the newsletter as near as possible to their own way of speaking and added their pictures and bylines. For the babies I wrote up something for them and added their pictures and bylines also. I then did a review of the whole year with family pictures of various functions which were held throughout the year.

On New Years day of 2000, I wrote a letter to each of my five children and the two grandchildren I had at that time and placed them into a tin box. On New Years day of 2010, I will write another letter to each of my children and grandchildren and will add letters to the new grandchildren to put into the box. And on New Years day of 2020, we plan to open it up and read all the letters, perhaps at our annual New Years dinner out.

I believe a family that has traditions which are important to each of them will tend to be a closer unit. Traditions seem to be the glue that sticks us together.