holiday traditions

Holiday Traditions

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I often write about holiday traditions, and I lose track of what I’ve shared already. We have several holiday traditions for several different holidays. Usually when asked about holiday traditions, the expected reference is Christmas. We have those, and I’d guess that practically all of them revolve around food, but we also have holiday traditions for Easter, Passover, Cinco de Mayo (despite not being Mexican), St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, birthdays, and New Year’s, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.

My birthday this year was meh, and it was barely meh. I was sick for days before, and I wasn’t quite right on my birthday, so everything went downhill. I didn’t want a cake because I couldn’t eat it. I usually spend the day by going to Starbucks for breakfast and a leisurely trip to Target to look at the ornaments and see what other treats I can find for myself.

I did go to Starbucks for my free drink, but I got it with no ice so I could save it for the weekend when I (hopefully) felt better. The rest of this month continues in slow motion. Some Christmas gifts will be late.

Since my son was working all week, I may light the menorah again when he comes for Christmas dinner.

Our usual Christmas morning tradition will be postponed to the afternoon since he will also be working an overnight and staying at work until mid afternoon. We usually have Dunkin’ Donuts and our favorite seasonal drinks and then open our gifts. I know the kids are littles anymore but I’m not sure how they’ll feel about not opening their gifts until the afternoon. Our traditional dinner is based on my husband’s family. His mother is from Belfast, and they always had roast beef for Christmas dinner, which is what we do. Roast beef, roasted onions, gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots, green bean casserole. The one thing we don’t have is her amazing trifle – I was never able to master that. Maybe one day we’ll give it a try. This year’s desserts are two pies – one apple streussel (from Cracker Barrel) and one Very Berry or Triple Berry from a local bakery. We have a nice vintage of whipped cream chilling in the fridge.

On Christmas Eve we get Chinese take-out and the day after Christmas I make a Shepherd’s Pie with the roast and mashed.

Our Christmas cards are hung up as of Monday, but our own cards won’t go out until the new year, and our tree isn’t up yet. It seems to go up later and later each year. We’re hoping for tonight. No Doctor Who this year, but maybe I’ll finally watch Fantastic Four and/or Superman on streaming. I also have half a dozen (or so) books to read, so there is no reason to be bored while waiting for present-time.

One of the traditions that we no longer do is a Christmas Eve gift. When the kids were small, they were given (wrapped) a new pair of pajamas and a book for bedtime. That way I guaranteed that they’d go to bed, and when they woke up, they would look nice for the Christmas morning photos. We do still bake cookies for Santa, and he’s kind and generous enough to bring us stockings with a nice selection of candy and usually a small gift card.

I think for the next few weeks, I’ll choose a holiday and write a small thing about how we celebrate and what our traditions are. I’ll probably start with New Year’s next week. What would you like to see after that?

Despite these last twelve months, I am trying to remain optimistic and positive and hoping that things can be better in the coming year.

Have a Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyous Greetings of the Season, a Blessed New Year, and longer light-filled days.

Friday Food. December.

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December is full of different types of food to fill the days of the different types of holidays we celebrate throughout the month of December. Recently, I went to a Festival Of Learning and had Latkes with applesauce (personally I love applesauce AND sour cream with my latkes) for Chanukah and Mexican Hot Chocolate with Molasses cookies for La Posada, and tonight (if it doesn’t snow) it will be something wonderful to celebrate Kwanzaa.

Our family Christmas traditions revolve around food and my husband’s traditions. Christmas Eve is Chinese take-out for dinner and Christmas morning breakfast is Dunkin’ Donuts. For dinner, it’s his mother’s tradition of a proper British carve up: roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, carrots & peas, plus a few of our own favorites. One year I made Yorkshire pudding which is both intimidating and easier than you think it is. She always made Trifle, which I have not even attempted.

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Holiday Traditions and Change

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​Everyone has family traditions that they follow throughout the year, but none more than on those special holidays. I’ve written about some of our family’s traditions, some that have come from my family and some from my husband’s family as well as the ones we’ve begun ourselves.

For Thanksgiving, we’ve adopted my family’s sweet potato pie. I don’t always make pie, sometimes I make a casserole. It had already been changed from the original recipe that I received from my friend in New Orleans by eating it as a side dish. My mother could never fathom it as a dessert. She wasn’t much of a pumpkin pie eater either; more coconut custard or cheesecake.

My husband’s mother was born and raised in Northern Ireland. She brought many of her Christmas traditions to her family including a roast dinner for Christmas dinner and the most amazing trifle, which I find impossible to replicate, so I choose not to.

When we began to have Christmas at our own house with our immediate family, my husband was insistent that we follow his familiy’s traditions to the letter. This includes Chinese take-out for Christmas Eve dinner, Dunkin’ Donuts for Christmas breakfast before we open our gifts, and roast beef and mashed for Christmas dinner. Since I had grown up Jewish, we didn’t have any Christmas tradition conflicts. After my conversion, I attend mass and events at my parish, but those are usually not in conflict with what we’re planning at home.

We’ve added our own like the gift of pjs on Christmas Eve night for all the kids, baking cookies for Santa, and watching the Doctor Who Christmas special.

In between all of that, I attend the masses, the Advent reconciliation prayer service, and the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a wonderful musical event that my parish holds every year.

Having every year flow in nearly the same way with only a few differences is comforting. It’s how we build the family and let the kids see what and who is important at the holidays.

Things change as the kids get older and want to spend time with their friends, girl- and boy-friends; they have jobs and have to juggle days off, and the like.

That is our challenge this year. My oldest son is an EMT, and he is working Christmas Day. He is working from 6am until midnight on Christmas Day. After some now-what-panic, i jumped into mom mode, and rearranged all of our days so we will still have our family holidays time, simply by moving everything up by one day. After the regular Vigil Mass on Saturday, we’ll have our Christmas Eve Chinese take-out, and make sure all the gifts are under the tree. We’ll wake up Sunday morning, and open our presents all together. Unfortunately for the kids, Santa doesn’t rearrange his schedule so they’ll have to wait for him to come on Monday morning, which is a bonus for we parents who can make the kids go to sleep early. Sneaky, IO know. Monday morning, my son will see if Santa filled his stocking before he heads out to a full day of work, and I will go to Christmas Day Mass that I usually miss in favor of the Christmas Vigil.

We all have our holiday challenges. This is a good reminder to everyone that as long as you’re with the ones you love, it will all work out in the end. It isn’t just the thought that counts; it’s the people.

Holiday Traditions – Christmas Eve

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​Before we moved and had children, my husband and I would spend Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas Eve and Day with his parents. My sister always alternated Thanksgiving with her in-laws and I thought our way made things much simpler and fair for everyone since my family didn’t celebrate Christmas. After we moved and decided to stay home with our kids for Christmas so they could wake up in their own house, things changed for us, but we still kept several, if not all of my husband’s family’s traditions that my husband  brought to our family.  Continue reading

Holiday Traditions – Chanukah

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I’ve written recently about how I celebrated Chanukah as a child and growing up. I’ve included two of those links below. Some of those traditions I’ve brought to my own family, but because of our interfaithness I’ve added and tweaked some of them over the years.

In some ways it was easier to celebrate Jewish holidays while growing up Jewish in primarily Jewish neighborhood. In those early, formative years, our neighbors were mostly Jewish, and so we all celebrated the same things. It wasn’t until moving at the end of fifth grade that my new friends celebrated something different. I don’t even recall if the schools were closed on Christmas before; I imagine they must have been, but  it wasn’t until my own kids were young that I realized that schools didn’t close for the High Holy Days. I would keep my own kids home, and the only time there was a dispute with the school was when my middle son went to kindergarten and the first day of school was to be on Rosh Hashanah. I discovered another Jewish family and I joined them at the Board of Education meeting to change the first day of school. We did. But it was met with a plethora of excuses on why they should not change the status quo. It was demoralizing and it instilled in me a more vocal advocacy than I’d had before.

As the only Jewish family in our schools or the only Jewish teacher when I taught, it’s fallen to me to have to explain Chanukah, and unfortunately the expectation is usually how it fits into Christmas, which of course, it doesn’t. It would even be doubtful if Jesus observed/celebrated Chanukah; It’s always been considered a minor holiday.

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