Christmas Traditions
Christmas is the one time of year that I can count on. We have some pretty strong traditions in my family, ones that have been passed down through generations, and ones that have slowly formed throughout the years. We never sat down and decided, “Ok, this will be a new tradition”. Things just happened. We learned to be able to count on them, and look forward to them every year.
When I was a kid, one of the traditions we had was that we would track Santa on New Years Eve on Norad. On Christmas morning, Santa (my Papap in a Santa suit) would visit us as we opened presents. Those traditions are on hold for now, since there are no young kinds in my family, but other traditions persist.
In my family, Christmas Eve feels like a bigger deal than Christmas itself. I grew up in a big Italian American family, and each Christmas Eve, we celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes. It’s a typical Italian American tradition, and the only rules are that you are supposed to have seven different kinds of seafood incorporated into the meal. This tradition passed down by my grandmother, who was a first generation American, has looked different over the years. As a kid, I hated it. I didn’t like seafood and she had to make special dishes just for me. When she passed, we began our own version of it at our house. My mom wasn’t big into seafood, so she would count different dishes as different fishes even if they were the same type of seafood. For example, popcorn shrimp and shrimp cocktail were counted as two different “fishes”. As I grew up and got into cooking, I began to help out. I brought more of the Italian recipes back into the meal and we now have seven legitimate different kinds of seafood on the menu. Our dinner is usually late, since we eat after the candlelit Christmas Eve church service. After dinner we change into Christmas jammies, eat Christmas cookies, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life by the fire.
Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. We spend all day together, preparing and celebrating. No one is worried about anything going on outside of the house. We’re together and focused on time spent with one another. We know what to expect, and we look forward to it. That is what is most special about Christmas Traditions.