Christmas Eve Traditions

Ohhh Christmas time. The time of year when it seems like 90% of America's population decides to take a crazy pill and act straight up nuts. Between the hustle, bustle, credit card receipts, failed recipes and screaming kids how can anyone like, let alone love this time of year?

For me, it's simple. I shop online (for the most part), spend only what I know I can afford and I only have one child-so far. As for the failed recipes, if I fail it once I make it a goal to either figure out what I did wrong or fix the recipe until I have results that I like. Anyway, the other huge key in the reason I love this time of year is my family's traditions. It is the only time of year when all of us can get together and have a good time.

Though some people have come and gone from around our dinner table, a majority of the people are still the same. My grandpa died in 1993 and was the one who had enough Christmas spirit to spread to even the scroogiest of people. Christmas was, by far, his favorite time of year. I wrote an entire hub about him, his death and his love for Christmas. I entitled it, The Worst Day of My Life, because the day he died truly was the worst day. We still carry on the traditions he and my grandma put in place 25 years ago the best that we can. Then, there was my Uncle John's wife, Lynn. They divorced and I honestly don't think we've ever seen them again. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I ever even met her. He remarried and, again, that didn't work out so Sherry's not been around, either. The last person that left our dinner table was my brother's crazy ex girlfriend, Kari. She was with us for nearly 3 years and I really believe she took one of those aforementioned crazy pills...she just up and left! And finally, there are 2 people that we have added to our list of guests. 5 years ago we welcomed my husband Matt to our family, and this year for her very first Christmas dinner, ever, we welcome my daughter, Kesiah Rebekka. 

Our dinner is almost always the same with a few variations. It was one of my grandpa's favorite meals. He would put a marinated pork roast on the rotisserie and a huge prime rib would be slow cooking as well. He was always in charge of the meats, though now my mom has that task. We always have my grandma's cranberry salad-the best you'll ever eat! Then, of course, there is the mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, coleslaw, fresh dinner rolls, homemade butter, pumpkin pies, pecan pies, usually a cake or two and because I've recently gotten into candy making, homemade candy. This year I made cherry chocolate and pecan chocolate drops. We all squeeze in around my grandma's big dining room table and sit, eat, talk and laugh as we all reminisce about past Christmases and antics of family members. Finally, we all sit back with big glasses of Christmas Punch and continue talking. At some point one of the women will start clearing dishes and that's the signal for everyone to get up and help. 

Once the dishes are cleared and washed-mom usually washes while my aunt and I dry. Once everything is cleaned up it's usually time to go to church. We pile into our trucks (I'm literally the only one in the family who drives a car) and we head to our tiny country church for Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. We sing carols, pray, take communion and listen to a message about the true meaning and reason for Christmas. Towards the end of the service, we light candles, sing another song and have a closing prayer. It's so nice to see not only my family, but church family on Christmas Eve. It feels more complete that way, I guess. All of the kids are gussied up in their Christmas suits and dresses, the men we usually see in jeans and t-shirts are in dress pants and nice sweaters and even some of the ladies pull a dress out of the closet and get in the spirit! If we have gifts for our closest friends, we exchange them and hugs and make plans to get together the following week or final plans for the New Year's parties. Once we say our goodbyes, we pile into the trucks again and head home. It's usually a pretty quiet ride. Most of us are thinking about how blessed we are to have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with our friends and family and how blessed we are God saw fit to send Jesus to Earth the way he did.

Once we're back home and thawed out, we all head into the living room with coffee and sit around the Christmas tree. Everyone talks until one of the kids can't handle it anymore and we start passing presents out to everyone. With the way our family has grown, it's become quite a pile of paper and bows! We used to have the kids open presents first, but for some reason about 15 years ago, my brother (the youngest in the family until Kesiah came along) decided that the "old" people needed to open first. He just loved watching everyone open their presents and loved the anticipation that built until he could open his. We still continue with that tradition, though it may go back to the youngest going first since Kesiah's patience isn't exactly all that great. With 8-10 people opening presents every year it gets to be quite time consuming, but we love it. We take as many pictures as we can and laugh as much as we can. We learned 16 years ago to cherish every second we have together, because one of us may not be there the next year. It was a tough lesson to learn, but it's made us take a little more time out for each other ever since. We all miss gipsie and he always pops up in a story or two, I reckon it's our way of having Christmas with him, even though he's not exactly there. 

Present opening usually doesn't end until midnight or after, and by then we're getting kind of hungry. A fresh pot of coffee is put on and the cakes, pies and other sugary goodness is brought out. Everyone always says 'oh I'm just going to have a sliver", but it always ends up as a sliver of everything! Finally, we just can hardly keep our eyes open anymore and we start to say our goodbyes. My uncle is from Pittsburgh, so he's not going anywhere, my brother still lives at home so he just goes to his room, and my husband and I and my aunt and uncle all just live down the hill from my mom and grandma so we hop in our cars for the 30 second ride. This year, instead of crashing into bed immediately, Matt and I will put Kesiah down for bed then go and set out some presents for her from "Santa". It's not going to mean a whole lot to her this year, but I figure we need to get in the practice.

On Christmas Day we'll open presents together as a family, just the three of us. I'll cook another dinner and we'll enjoy it together, just the three of us. I like it this way, though, because although I would not trade our Christmas Eve traditions for any amount of anything, I like to spend time with my husband and baby, just the three of us.