Traditions of Christmas Past

For a long time, I really struggled with identifying our family's Christmas traditions.  It seemed we always did things the same from year to year, but I never really identified those things as "family traditions."  In my mind, a family Christmas tradition was something like gathering at Grandpa's feet while he sat in the rocking chair and read A Christmas Carol.  Or a traditional stuffing recipe that was passed down from my great great great great grandmother who made it during the Civil War.  Or bundling up in warm coats, hats and mittens to serenade our neighbors with a collective off-kilter rendition of We Wish You A Merry Christmas from their front porch.  Forgive me for that moment of sadness, when I thought of all of the things that I didn't have to pass on to our child.

But, wait.  Am I kidding?  Of course we have traditions.  And we can make traditions (ooh, I see a future blog post in the making).  I have nothing to be sad about.

Take, for instance, the annual hunt for the perfect Christmas Tree.  When we moved out here 8 years ago, Troy suggested that we find a Christmas tree farm and cut our own tree.  To a suburban girl in the country, that sounded like a dream come true.  I'd never really thought I'd have an opportunity to do it, so the suggestion  grew like a flame on dry tinder.  And 8 years (and 8 perfectly imperfect trees) later, we continue to trudge out to the middle of the field, where the dog finds every mud puddle or dried leaf, decide on a "small tree" in the field, only to find that on the car ride home it has mysteriously grown two feet and what looked like a perfectly reasonable tree in the field is now too tall for me to fit the start on top.

And then there is my annual trek back to my childhood home in Elkhart to see my high school's Christmas variety show, Christmas Spectacular (Spec, for short) in the company of my parents.  I believe this year, the show is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and I have been there, either as a spectator or participant for 20 of the last 21 shows.  I have seen at least a dozen renditions of the Concord Singers' Fruitcake and even endured the one year that someone decided that Parade of the Wooden Soldiers had been done before and removed it from the show.  Of course it had been done before, but it's simply not Spec without Parade and it simply isn't Christmas without Spec.

Or the pilgrimage to Midnight Mass, where we have to be early so that we can hear the choir sing the prelude of Christmas carols and, more importantly, so that we can join our voices to the gathered congregation.

And, as I experienced last night, the absolute joy I find in turning off all of the house lights so that I can watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown by the lights of the Christmas tree while I recite the dialog word for word and "do do do" along with the animated cast to Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

And on Christmas day, when one person dons the elfin headgear to pass out presents, one at a time, while all of the family watches the receiver's joy of opening a gift and the giver is thanked with gratitude in front of the whole family.

And the post-dinner game of Rummy when things among family members get a little bit heated in the most friendly way (it isn't called Crap on your Neighbor for nothing).

These are the legacy of the Stinson family that I can't wait to pass along to the next generation while we wait to create our own holiday traditions that bridge the generations.