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Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Holiday Traditions [1]
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Date: 2022-12-22
What traditions do you include in your holiday celebrations?
When I was growing up, we always put our Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve in the late afternoon. The kids, as we grew older and noticed how most families of friends had their trees up much earlier, made the pitch to change the tradition but that didn’t happen until I was in my late teens.
My mother was always locked away in her room under strict “Do Not Disturb” instructions so she could do her last-minute holiday gift wrapping. Dad usually picked up pizza for dinner.
When mom finally emerged from her room, we would all sit down in the playroom and listen to “A Christmas Carol” and “The Nativity” LPs. None of us kids enjoyed this part of the tradition, and after a time, mom didn’t much care for hearing “A Christmas Carol” yet another time, so in later years it would just be my dad and us kids listening to that until mom came out of her room for “The Nativity.”
By 11:30, we’d be bundled up and in the car to drive downtown to Midnight Mass. There were a few years when we opened our gifts when we got home but, finding that not having gifts to wake to on Christmas morning was depressing, we usually chose to wait,
The gifts that my dad got my mother were always highly anticipated, One year it was a canary (Oh, how she loved that bird!), Another year, it was a brand new Robin’s egg blue Chevy Impala. Yet another, a mink stole.
For the week between Christmas and New Year’s my mother would wait until everyone was in bed, then sit down on the sofa and begin designing a plan of how she was going to redecorate the tree, She’d be up and down for hours, night after night, This was in the later years, after she insisted we switch to gold and white colors for all the lights and ornaments.
When we kids grew up and had families of our own, mom sent each of us a tape of “The Nativity,” with instructions to include that in our Christmas Eve traditions. None of us did.
For many years, when I was still married and my daughter was growing up, we had a tradition of going out to lunch in San Francisco near Union Square so we could look at the windows and watch the skaters in the park.
Since my daughter returned from Nicaragua and moved to the east bay, we’ve established our own traditions. Christmas Eve she and her partner come over and we have family friends over for an Italian dinner. When they leave we watch a Christmas movie. We wake up early on Christmas morning and open our presents before sitting down to an Eggs Benedict brunch. Then they go over to my ex-husband’s for a meal and come back here for a light dinner before heading back home.
Most Memorable Holiday
What are your most fond memories of holidays from your childhood? My most memorable Christmas was when I was 17 and a senior in high school. I had just started going steady with a handsome and charming 19-year-old who hung out with a rough crowd downtown. He used to walk me home along the railroad tracks through the snow, right to my front door, where he’d kiss me good-bye.
He called me on Christmas Eve that night and I took the call downstairs so we could have some privacy. My mother shouted down suggesting I invite him over for the evening. I was too embarrassed about our family traditions. That year, my mom bought me this stylish black wool dress with satin at the hem paired with a lush black coat. One day during the holidays my friend and I dressed up and went into New York City. I wore the dress and coat and my boyfriend’s class ring. When we got off the train that evening, we decided to head over to the ice cream parlor to see if he was there. He came sailing in about ten minutes later and I could tell right away he was stoned. He sat down in the booth across from me and reached for my hands. That’s when I noticed he was wearing another girl’s high school ring on his pinky. I broke up with him on the spot. The relationship, however, picked up again and again over the years, but it never had the magic it had that Christmas season. I guess that was my first real heartbreak. I look back on it now with such nostalgia.
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