Sweet Christmas Traditions with @tifforelie
Ben Ashby
an essay by Tiffany Mitchell
CHRISTMAS IS A TIME FOR TRADITIONS. I grew up in a two family home in the suburbs of northeastern New Jersey where Christmas was the event of the year. Birthdays were fun, Thanksgiving was exciting, but Christmas was the big deal - the major deal. Our traditions started on Christmas Eve. The whole family would gather at my aunt’s house where we would play games, eat, do the “cousins grab bag”, eat some more, and sing Happy Birthday to my aunt (who was born on Christmas Eve). At midnight, everyone would trek out to the front yard in the freezing cold where we would complete the nativity scene with a baby doll and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. We would then sing carols until us “kids” began sneaking off one by one either out of fatigue, or the desire to avoid scaring any more of the neighbors.
Getting home from the Christmas Eve party was a tradition in and of itself. Whoever snuck away first would arrive at the house and ascend the stairs to our second story living room where they would be met with the warm glow of a fully decorated Christmas tree and the familiar scent of pine needles. Christmas morning was only hours away and even though as adults we don’t experience it the same way we did when we were kids, it’s somehow just as magical.
I’ve always been the first to wake up on Christmas morning. My mom had a rule not to wake her until 7:30, so my 3 siblings and I would tackle the stockings while we waited for her to join us. Once we were all up, we would open one gift each (in age order) until we ran out of presents. At that point we were both starving and exhausted, so lots of eating and napping followed.
We’ve done the same thing every year for as long as I can remember. Without those traditions, I don’t think Christmas would have been the grand occasion my family made of it. When my husband and I moved to Lexington a year ago, we had only been married 2 years and were looking to start holiday traditions of our own. This will be our 4th Christmas together and it still feels like we’re starting from square one. Maybe it takes a few years before a tradition actually starts to take root.
Each year we’ve added something new. The first year it was visiting our families. The second year it was making hot cocoa from scratch. Last year we visited our families, made the cocoa and took funny Christmas card pictures of our cat. This year we’ll be adding something to complement the cocoa - sugar cookies! Our traditions seem so simple, but I guess that’s how all great traditions start out, right?
