Advent Tour: Day 22

Last year for Marg and Kailana’s Virtual Advent Tour, I shared a few of my secular Christmas traditions. And in fact, I’m typing by Christmas tree light; while there’s no chance of snow outside this year, my traditions remain in place. This year, I thought I’d tell you guys about what Christmas itself was like growing up.

The season began when my mom gave us our advent calendars, the first day of December. Every night, we’d get to open another window and eat the chocolate, as well as see the new picture. Around the same time, my dad would put the Christmas lights up on our house: my sister would get up on the roof and help, but I stayed inside and made hot chocolate for them as my contribution. As I’ve mentioned before, my dad was career Air Force, so we never lived near family. But I have quite a few uncles and aunts, as well as two sets of loving grandparents. And we used to exchange big boxes of Christmas gifts! My sister and I loved to help my mom wrap up presents for the extended family, so some week in early December we’d sit on the floor, pop in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and get everything ready to send out. My sister was always more into decorating the wrapped presents, and she sometimes had to be rationed to make the bows last! ;) I, on the other hand, would occasionally get so excited at wrapping them as efficiently as possible that I’d forget whose present I was wrapping or to label it. So then I’d have to gently pry the tape back to peek at the gift! My mom always said she couldn’t do it without us though!

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We would start receiving packages of Christmas presents around this same time. When we lived abroad, though, our friends and family had to fill out customs declarations detailing the contents. So my sister and I weren’t allowed to look at the outer packaging, and I remember trying to avoid those little green labels to keep the surprise! I was never the kind of kid who wanted to find out my gifts ahead of time; in my view, that just made the waiting even more difficult. But once the packaging was removed, the presents would go under the Christmas tree. My mom always wanted one early, no later than mid-December. We’d spend a night unwrapping all of the ornaments and deciding where to hang each one, while my dad sorted out the strings of lights (which never seemed to work right out of storage). Last of all, my mom would get out a step ladder to put our angel on top; I loved the tree glowing quietly in the corner, with the presents piled underneath. That same night, my mom would put out all of her other Christmas decor: in addition to collecting Santas, she saved every Christmas craft my sister and I made, and even today, she continues to put them out.

Since we were never close to extended family, Christmas itself was an immediate family only affair. My mom grew up opening all presents from friends & family on Christmas Eve, then stockings and presents from Santa on Christmas morning. We followed this tradition! So every year of my childhood, after Christmas Eve mass (my mom raised us Catholic in accordance with her mother’s wishes; my dad must be agnostic, because I’ve never seen him go to church), we’d eat dinner and get down to the real business of the evening. Presents! But before we could open anything, my dad would get out a tripod and set up a video camera. Remember, this was the 90s, so it was quite an impressive size. Yep: every year we recorded us opening our presents, then sent copies of the home movie to our family! This meant, as a child, I was very careful to show an equal amount of enthusiasm to every gift. ;) Dad would put on a Santa hat, and he was in charge of deciding who would get to open a present next; we all took turns so that we could watch each other. And he had a trash bag for the wrapping paper; I remember him constantly reminding us to ‘corral’ the trash we’d already created. heehee

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Then we’d put out cookies and milk for Santa, baby carrots and a big bowl of water for the reindeer, and go to sleep. In the morning, we’d come out to stuffed stockings (everything in the stockings was wrapped) and two piles of gifts from Santa, one for my sister and one for me. Santa conveniently used different wrapping paper for each of us, which made it easy to tell whose presents were who! Santa also always made sure there were the exact same number of wrapped presents for my sister and myself, even if this meant certain individual things were wrapped separately. We had to wait until my parents got up, of course, to dive in! But once they were both awake, we could open presents as we chose, instead of waiting for my dad to distribute them. As you might imagine, the unwrapping didn’t take as long! Also, we’d always have a message from Santa written on the paper plate we’d used for the cookies the night before: the letter spiraled around, following the circular shape. There were never any cookies left. ;)

We spent the rest of the day in our pajamas, playing with our new toys (and in my case, reading my new books). Finally, before dinner, we’d get dressed for my mom’s fancy dinner (a la Thanksgiving), but afterwards it’d be right back to playing!

Nowadays, we still get presents from Santa (even before my niece was born). But usually, we get a few more presents from my parents on Christmas Eve and fewer presents from Santa than when we were little! And Santa still expects a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies to be left out. This year, my niece is four, so she’s really getting into the traditions, and it’s so fun to watch. Christmas is a time for me to count my blessings, and reflect on the wonderful people in my life. As you can imagine, book bloggers are included in those reflections! I wish you all a happy holiday season, filled with peace, joy and love.

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