Christmas Traditions, Part 2

As I recently mentioned, it turns out my family did have Christmas traditions!

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 I loved it when my mom hung up the snowflake made of 6-pack rings. I loved it when she brought out the basket of Christmas books. I loved it when we got to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. I loved dancing to Christmas music, especially the musicological journey through the 12 days of Christmas. I loved getting a new ornament every year in my stocking.  I loved seeing the wall get plastered with Christmas cards and newsletters from friends, and I loved even more seeing what my parents wrote about us each year in our newsletter. 

But, it's more interesting to talk more about funny memories than sweet traditions. So here instead are the top 10 unsentimental memories from Christmas time.

10. Gathering my mom's side of the family together at the age of 4 on Christmas to let them know it was no longer okay for them to call me "Kyra Bagheera." To their credit, they respected my wishes. I appreciate that.

9. Writing a letter to my dad at the age of 6 or 7 which stated, "Dear Mister Moon, I do not think you should get any Christmas presents this year. From, your daughter," leaving it in the office for him to find, hiding in the nearby bathroom to witness his response, and hearing him laugh. I had wanted to provoke him into apologizing for getting mad at me earlier, so I was infuriated that he laughed.

8. Spending Christmas Eve with my cousins in Lindon, then driving back up to Logan and expecting to go out to eat. Everything was closed as far as we could see. As we drove around in hunger I thought of ancient Jews searching for a place to eat and sleep. Then suddenly, there was standing before us an open store -- Little Caesar's! And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a pizza from Little Caesar's, and all the family was taxed. (Sales taxed, that is.)

7. Matching pajamas.

But you had to have the right color hair to get them, I guess.

6. Not going caroling to the fire station along with my mom, sisters, and other relatives one Christmas in Kansas because I wanted to be difficult. The next day, there was a picture in the newspaper of the group caroling. All I wanted in life at that age was to make it into the newspaper someday, so I was terribly disappointed. Naturally, I think I blamed my mom for not making me come.

5. Making the best of an unseasonably warm Christmas. The Christmas after Kevin and I got married, it was in the upper 40s, possibly even warmer. After we all opened presents, my mom pointed out one last present on the patio -- a new fire pit.

"Instead of ham for our Christmas dinner, we can do hot dogs!" my mom said. After a few hours of trying to start a fire with winter-wet wood, we brought them in and cooked them in an oven. I could see the disappointment in Kevin's face as we ate -- we gave up ham for this! 

4. Spending all the fall writing my American Girl spinoff series novel "Hello Kristie," hiding it in with other presents, and watching my confused relatives open it. "It says it's from Santa." "I think I saw it come in with Barbara's presents." Finally I couldn't bear it any more.

"I wrote it! It's my story!" They all sat down and read it. I have no clue how they kept straight faces. (Find the first two chapters here.)

3. More matching pajamas.

We didn't much care for dogs, actually.

2. Giving and getting Christmas treats from the neighbors. In particular, in 2004, our family went without candy from the beginning of January until Christmas morning. It wasn't that hard, really -- we had all gorged ourselves on candy on our drive back from our grandparents in Kansas, so for the first few weeks we were just grossed out by the thought of candy. 

And then after that, we just never bought it, and we just got used to life without it. And, like, things weren't too strict -- we could still have chocolate chips as long as they were in cookies, and we could still have ice cream and other treats, so it really wasn't that bad. Sometime in the fall, Kaylie was the youth speaker and talked about what we had learned from the experience.

After that, the whole ward knew that we weren't eating candy, and it affected the treats we got that year for Christmas. "I heard you guys weren't doing sweets this year, so I brought something else!" one neighbor told us cheerfully as he handed us a jar and left.

It was sauerkraut.

It was bad enough that we had to live with the smell of sauerkraut 3 days every fall while our town celebrated it in Providence Sauerkraut Days. Now it had been brought into our house!

"And the year was almost over, anyway!" my mom exclaimed as she sent us to take the jar somewhere far far away from her. I think my dad ended up eating it.

1. Bringing good tidings of great joy unto all people.

Or something like that.

Christmas Traditions, Part 1

"What are some Christmas traditions you had when you were growing up?" I've been asked a few times this year.

I have responded with a blank stare, then a slow response. "On Christmas morning, there would be presents under a large fake coniferous tree, and we would open them." Okay, I've never said that, but I have drawn a blank an embarrassing amount. (So much, in fact, that I turned down a chance to give a brief talk during Sacrament Meeting this Sunday, explaining, "I'm not very good at Christmas.")

And this year, I haven't been super great at it yet, though it had a promising start. We got all of our Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving (the snow came down and the tree came up -- it's Newton's third law of physics). The first week of December I attended a Christmas white elephant party and hosted a Christmas carol party, complete with wassail. But the next day I noticed a tickle in my throat, and both Matthew and I got hit hard with a bad cough and cold.

So that put a damper on things. I mean, it's not like you really want to go walking around with plates of cookies saying, "Here, have these rhinovirus laced treats!" (And it's not like we'd eat them ourselves . . . I may as well be mixing toothpaste into all of our treats for how much Kevin likes any sort of mint, and that and gingerbread are the two treats I think of when it comes to Christmas.) And all those books Kevin checked out of the music library for me with old English and Latin and French carols? I would be singing them in Phlegmish instead if I could sing at all. So the past week and a half hasn't felt terribly much like Christmas time (except for when Joseph and I would sit and watch these).

But it's actually been a good thing because it's helped me realize that my family actually had tons of traditions, none of which I'm carrying on this year. It turns out poinsettias and advent calendars don't just spontaneously appear, nor do games of "Warmer, Colder" with baby Jesus start on their own. Christmas books don't check themselves out of the library, tickets to the Nutcracker don't buy themselves, and even Christmas specials like Rudolph have to be found on YouTube before they get watched.

So yeah, my family actually did a ton for Christmas. There were decorations, foods, service projects, concerts, parties, movies, stories, nightly readings, all of it. I think I was just so busy as a teenager with AP projects and Christmas concerts that I forgot that we did anything. (Actually, that's also why I didn't think I did any extracurricular activities until I realized that choir and piano lessons and play practice counted as extracurriculars.)

Oddly enough, being able to remember how much we did for Christmas has helped take the pressure off for this year. Can't quite say why. Maybe it's that we still have time to tweak and add traditions -- nothing has to be perfect when your oldest is only 3 years old. Maybe it's that the process of forgetting and remembering traditions has helped highlight what matters most about Christmas. And, to be honest, since that's stressed me out too (I can't fix everything in the world and my ward for Christmas, and it drives me crazy), it's helped me realize that something is always better than nothing -- you are allowed to carol empty handed.

All that said, it's still nice to not have to give that talk on Sunday.