“It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, Everywhere you go…” Well, not really. Not here, not for me. Which, has made me think a lot about Christmas, the traditions, and what exactly does Christmas mean for me. This is my first Christmas away from home, and I think my saving grace is that it feels like summer, there is no snow, and it’s really easy to forget its less than a week away—but I have watched Love Actually about 30 times, so the Christmas spirit is going strong even in this tropical climate. In fact I’m making Christmas cookies with the boys tonight, and Saturday we’re having Christmas dinner (but Mom, make sure you save me some perogies) because I want to share some of my Christmas traditions with my Honduran family.
My family has a lot of Christmas traditions, from going into the woods to cut down our tree to be decorated by hand made decorations accumulated over the years, to the advent calendar we each take turns filling for the day with 6 special treats, kind words or a fun evening activity, to making rum balls with my brother, to playing ‘Taste of Christmas’ (a compilation of scremo style Christmas songs) while decorating because I used to be a scremo kid and my brothers and I still enjoy the CD, to attending Church on Christmas eve and embracing my mothers East Coast roots with mince meat pie. I even have some traditions of my own, that my family doesn’t necessarily like, such as heading to Paul's and playing shootable snakes and ladders with Christmas inspired shots while Santie Clause is busy dropping of toys to the good girls and boys, but they support because it’s important to me and I still get out of bed at the crack of dawn when my little sister is ready to open presents before the sun has had a chance to rise. To taking turns watching each other open presents slowly and deliberately, to the log channel on T.V. that my dad insists on putting on even thought we have a real fire going, to mimosas and smoked salmon/cream cheese bagels once the living room looks like a battle ground of wrapping paper and bows to watching its a Wonderful Life after Christmas brunch because its my moms one of my moms favourite movies. To preparing Christmas dinner for all of my wonderful beautiful, slightly loco extended family and close family friends, to playing in the snow with my little cousins, to lots of hugs, laughter and a warm fire.
For me Christmas is a feeling, that extends just the one day and can fill up the entire month. It’s about family—for better and for worse—and its about the warmth and happiness I get from seeing so many of the people that I care about and love at the same time, and sharing these special traditions and moments with. Its about the accumulation of (22 years) of memories and experiences, its about feeling warm even though its cold outside, its about making people smile by picking out the perfect gift (or a thoughtful action), its about going to the mall on December 23rd looking for that last minute thing to pull everything together and rather than battling the swarms of last minute shoppers, reveling in the last minute Christmas chaos while sharing the moment, and its about regardless of the annual Christmas eve ‘disagreement’, knowing that your family is family and the next morning (before the sun rises) you’ll be thrown together into something magical—and to me that is something special.
When I have a family of my own (don’t worry Dad—it wont be for a (long)while), I want to share my families traditions with them, and make some of my own—I’ll probably ditch the Christmas shooters—and share the special magical feeling that my parents were able to share with me when I was little and continue to help me feel until now, for my first Christmas away from home sans family and sans snow—but not sans Christmas spirit. I’ll miss my family (friends and loved ones) this Christmas. I’ll miss our traditions, making gingerbread men with Kaitlyn and Damien, drinking eggnog by the tree every night with my mom and a warm fire, spilling my coffee Christmas morning (every year without fail) because I didn’t move it when my dad told me to because he (still) always knows best. I’ll miss the laughter, the smiles, and even the Christmas eve ‘disagreement’, but I will be thinking of them and (I hope) they’ll be thinking of me, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s enough to keep the Christmas magic alive.
Merry Christmas—knock back a few Spiced Nogs for me ;)
Delaney C.
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