Moving on…
Let’s talk Christmas! I love Christmas so much! Honestly I might even say I love it more now that I’m older. Sure I don’t have those butterflies in my stomach Christmas Eve night while I try to force myself to sleep because the sooner you fall asleep the sooner morning comes and the sooner you can see what Santa brought you, but I’ve traded those butterflies for wishing and willing time would slow down for those few precious hours we all get to spend together as a family. So, I thought I would dedicate today’s blog post to my favorite Christmas traditions with my family.
Stockings.
It is no secret at all that opening my stocking is my favorite, favorite, favorite part of Christmas morning. In my family we all buy each other fun little gifts, wrap them, and add them to each other’s stocking while they aren’t looking. On Christmas morning while we are opening the gifts, we always thank Santa for the presents even though they were in our stocking way before Santa came on Christmas Eve. (Technicalities, smecnicalities.) My family opens all gifts individually. This includes stockings. Therefore the whole process of my family opening stockings can take a long time for a number of reasons. 1. I want to make my stocking last, so I take my time enjoying it knowing it will be 365 more days until I get to do it again.
2. My mother TAKES FORVER OPENING PRESENTS because she refuses to rip the pretty paper. This means she tries to pry the tape up off the paper as neatly as possible and then (yeah it gets worse) she has to fold the paper into a small square before actually opening the box or looking at the gift. You can see how with Birthday gifts or under the tree gifts this is annoying and time consuming, but when she is doing this for twenty little, tiny gifts in her stocking… well… it can take a whole lot of time.
3. This year Nephew has a stocking and I won’t get to be the first to open my stocking. Yes, I have no problem acting like a 6 year old and letting this kinda upset me. Boo little kids in the family! (Yeah I get this has nothing to do with “time allowed to open stocking gifts” like 1 and 2, but I thought it deserved a number.)
Christmas Eve Dinner.
We have the same things to eat every year on Christmas Eve. We snack on shrimp, meatballs, tamales, spinach balls, cheese dip, veggies, cookies, guacamole, and Champagne (Sprite in Champagne glasses when my sister and I were growing up). What is kinda funny about this menu is we eat the exact same things when we would decorate the Christmas tree (which we always made a family affair) and on New Year’s Eve, yet never any other non December holidays. We always eat on paper plates, but use my parent’s wedding crystal for the alcohol. Christmas Dinner.
We have no traditions for what we eat for Christmas dinner, which I think is weird. My Sister and I would flip out if there were no spinach balls on the buffet Christmas Eve, but we have no “must haves” for Christmas dinner. I find this incredibly odd because my family revolves around food! Seriously the food and menu is the most important part of family events. We plan vacations around how many meals we can fit into the trip. “Two days in Key West? That’s not enough time to eat here and here and here and oh we have to eat there and there and here... We must stay another day!” All of our best stories start, “This one time we were in X Country eating X…” Yet, every year a few weeks before Christmas my mother calls me and asks me what I would like for Christmas dinner. We’ve had the usual turkey and ham, but we’ve also sat down to pheasant and beef tenderloin. This year I believe quail will be on our table.
Christmas Crackers.
We may have no food traditions for Christmas dinner but we always have Christmas Crackers. No, you don't eat them, they're a British tradition we picked up living on the other side of the pond and it’s a fun one to keep around. How you use them is two people hold the cracker by the paper string that comes out both ends. At the same time the two people pull hard and the paper breaks in the middle causing a loud, “SNAP”. Then you open the cracker and inside of it is a crappy toy, a horrible British joke, and a fun paper crown that if you are sitting at the table with my family must be worn the rest of the meal. Got to love the English!
Yes, we are very cute in our hats. No, it wasn't Christmas, but actually last New Years Eve. I didn't lie when I said this would be Boyfriend's very first Christmas with my family. Garth Brooks’ “Beyond The Season”.
BEST CHRISTMAS CD EVER. You know what’s not the best Christmas CD ever? Garth Brook’s other, newer Christmas CD called “The Magic of Christmas”. It really kinda sucks. Beyond the Season is amazing, though, and every song on that CD reminds me of my family and Christmas. It starts with the best version of Go Tell it on The Mountain ever which I love and ends with the classic, What Child Is This sung absolutely beautifully (don't you love that word pair english teachers) by a pre-divorce, pre-Chris Gains, pre-In Pieces (aka the Aint Going Down Till The Sun Comes Up Album where he wears that horrible black and red boxes shirt) Garth Brooks. Two of my favorite Christmas songs that aren’t “classics” come from this album. “The Gift” (which will always remind me of my dad) makes me cry. It’s beautiful, not cheesy which is hard to do in a Christmas song. Also, “The Friendly Beasts” (which I love) is about the animals that were also in the manger on the night of Jesus’ birth. His version of Silent Night is my favorite as well, even with his monolog in the middle about him and his wife trying to make it home for Christmas in bad weather. Love. So. Much.
Remember that place we ate at in Key West ... right on the water, and all we had was buckets of peel and eat shrimp and beer? OMG that was amazing. Oh! And the conch fritters!!! *drool
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