tradition...

One thing I love about Christmas is the chance it gives us to think about family traditions. I've enjoyed reading friends' blogs this year and learning a little bit about them through the the things they do to celebrate the holiday season.

Our family is still young; TEC and I do most of the leading when it comes to following family traditions. But our kids are starting to really get into Christmas as well. RVC keeps us in check each day..."Did we move Mary and Joseph yet?" (on the advent calendar) "Did we remember to turn the Christmas lights on?" She also likes to "organize" the presents under the tree. How many of you have your presents piled according to wrapping paper? Well, we do, thanks to RVC.

I wondered how much TLC understood about what happens on Christmas Eve, but the other night, when I asked him "who's going to come?" he told me all about it. He's a bit concerned, though, after inspecting our fireplace. "We need to clean that before Santa comes," he told us. Dad has reassured him that Santa's suit is supposed to be "covered with ashes and soot."

Of course, we do our best to make the real story of Christmas part of our family traditions. One of my favorite things to do with the kids is sing songs together about the Savior's birth. And then I love to hear them singing them on their own from time to time.

TEC's family contributes a lot to our traditions. There's the Clark Family Sing-in each year that traditionally "brings on Christmas Eve." We attended that last Sunday evening. Then there's the Cundick Christmas Eve at Gramie and Boba's where we enjoy a feast of roast and Yorkshire pudding and sing Christmas hymns and share talents with extended family. On Christmas morning, after the kids have lined up youngest-to-oldest to enter the front room and see what Santa brought, there's the breakfast of Finnan Haddie, a Davis tradition. I think TEC and his parents are the only ones who really savor this one (and I insist on making a few alternative breakfast foods as well).

My family, while ours were not as formal, had some special traditions growing up as well. I remember spending evenings with other families during the Christmas season--the Dobsons and Bushmans had an annual pizza night. We'd eat, exchange gifts, and as young kids, we would line up on the fireplace to sing Christmas carols (our parents had less success talking us into do this part once we were teenagers). I remember similar nights with a few neighbor families.

We'd have a Christmas Eve dinner--turkey or ham usually, with a few other resurrected Thanksgiving dinner favorites. On Christmas morning, the kids would go into the living room to discover our gifts from Santa. Mom and Dad would come in after a while. We'd have breakfast before we opened presents. For years my mom would make caramel pecan rolls--I don't think I appreciated them as a kid. As we grew up, our Christmas breakfast traditions evolved. The standard became caramel "pull aparts" with special Julius to drink. This is what I contribute to my own family Christmas breakfasts. Although, I'm not as big a fan of the pull aparts as I used to be. We still do the julius, but it's cinnamon rolls for us instead. I have to say that I felt some guilt when I told my sister that we have strayed in this way--it is tradition, after all.

Tonight I was reminded of another Christmas tradition from my family. Every year my sister Valerie and I would pull out the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite duet book and stumble our way through the pieces. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was our favorite. This afternoon after church, there was a message on our machine inviting us over to the Morton home so Val and I could play again. I'd guess it had been about 10 years since we'd played together. It was a lot of fun. I think we'll have to do it again over at my parents' house on Christmas day, just for tradition's sake.