Holiday Traditions

(It was such a crazy, busy week last week, I didn't have a chance to come up with a blog post for today. The post below was originally listed on December 7, 2015 but is as true today as it was then.)

Every year I make Christmas cookies with my mom and have done so since I was a toddler. Of course as I grew older, my helping duties changed. It's something I look forward to. I can't imagine Christmas without making cookies with her.

Another thing I do every year is watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. This is another carried over tradition from when I was a child. I love snuggling in bed with hot chocolate and watching this cartoon.

A semi-new tradition is scheduling a girls' day out with my mom and one of my sisters. We pick a date in early to mid-December and go shopping to finish or try to finish all of our shopping, then we go to lunch and head back home. Sometimes we gather at my house to wrap presents, sometimes we just gather and do nothing but relax. It's always a lot of fun.

Holiday Wrapping

 Is there that one thing you hate about the December holiday season, well besides fighting the crowds looking for that perfect gift?

My one thing is wrapping presents. Actually, I don't like wrapping presents any time of the year but even more so at Christmas. It could be because there are hundreds of things to wrap. And that is only a very slight exaggeration.

I come from a large family and we buy for everyone - brothers, sisters, spouses, significant others, nieces, nephews, their spouses/partners, and great nieces and nephews. In my mom's case, she buys for her five children, their spouses or significant others, all of her grandchildren and their spouses/partners,  and all of the great grandchildren. She buys everyone at least three gifts each so between all of the gifts she's purchased and all of the gifts I've purchased, you can imagine how many things there are to be wrapped.

My dislike of wrapping gifts has led to one of my favorite holiday traditions. -- I was complaining about having so many gifts to wrap one year and my sister offered to come over and help.

Ever since then, my mother, sister, and I get together on Christmas eve in the early afternoon and wrap presents while we talk and listen to Christmas music. We break for dinner - pizza from the local pizza place. After dinner, we turn any Christmas cartoons we can find on TV and continue wrapping until everything is done, usually about 10:00pm or so.

We help my sister pack up the gifts she needs to take home. Luckily she only lives across the street. My mom and I put all the remaining presents under the Christmas tree as everyone converges on our home at various times the next day. Before heading off to bed, we have a Christmas cookie or two while sitting and relaxing and admiring our hard work as the packages glisten under the lights from the Christmas tree.

While I still am not a fan of wrapping presents, I find myself looking forward to this marathon wrapping session every year.

Holiday Traditions

(I've been crazy busy lately with the Thanksgiving holiday, appointments, the day job, and trying to get my holiday cards finished that I almost forgot to post something today. Please forgive the repeated post - it was originally posted on December 19, 2011, but is still just as true today.)

Everyone I know has at least one holiday tradition they look forward to every year from Black Friday shopping to family gatherings to attending that one special holiday party every year. 

I have two traditions I look forward to.  One is to watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.  I’m well past the age of believing in Santa Claus and flying reindeer, but it’s just not Christmas if I don’t watch Rudolph.  Every year, the night it’s on, I get in bed, prop up my pillows, and snuggle under my big fluffy comforter and watch the cartoon while my cat curls up at my feet.  Of course, there’s always a cup of hot chocolate involved too.

The most important tradition though is making Christmas cookies with my mom.  She started teaching me to cook when I was four years old.  Every December we would make cut out cookies in various holiday shapes.  She would mix the dough on a Friday evening and put it in the refrigerator over night.   My brothers and sisters and I would take turns peering into the refrigerator at the bowl of dough and asking when it would be ready for baking.

Finally, Saturday afternoon would come and she’d pronounce it ready.  She would roll it out and place the cutters on the dough.  Each one of my siblings and I would get a turn to push the cutters down into the dough.  My mom would peel away the excess, put the cut out pieces onto a baking sheet and into the oven.  We’d repeat the process over and over until every scrap of dough had been formed into a cookie.

Rows and rows of angels, reindeers, snowmen, Christmas trees, holly leaves, tree ornaments, and Santa Claus cookies would fill one end of the table to cool then be packed away until the next day, the most important day of all – the day we would frost them. 

My mom would make the frosting and allow each one of us to stir drops of food coloring into bowls of white icing.  We’d have a rainbow of colors and little bottles of colored sugar to decorate the cookies with.  We’d spend the afternoon decorating the cookies, making sure the Santa cookies were frosted red and white to represent his suit, the snowmen white with a strip of yellow around his neck and down his stomach to represent his scarf.  Christmas trees had brown frosting for the trunk and green frosting for the leaves and a dot of yellow at the top for the star just to describe a few.  When we were finished, my mom would lay them on wax paper to set.  We would ooh and ah over them like they were the most magnificent cookies ever made.

My brothers and sisters are all married with children now and building their own holiday traditions but for two days every December my siblings and I gather together and make Christmas cut out cookies with my mom.  It’s a tradition I hope we’re able to continue for many years to come.

Holiday Traditions

Every year I make Christmas cookies with my mom and have done so since I was a toddler. Of course as I grew older, my helping duties changed. It's something I look forward to. I can't imagine Christmas without making cookies with her.

Another thing I do every year is watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. This is another carried over tradition from when I was a child. I love snuggling in bed with hot chocolate and watching this cartoon.

A semi-new tradition (we've only been doing it for about three years) is scheduling a girls' day out with my mom and one of my sisters. We pick a date in early to mid-December and go shopping to finish or try to finish all of our shopping, then we go to lunch and head back home. Sometimes we gather at my house to wrap presents, sometimes we just gather and do nothing but relax. It's always a lot of fun.

Are there any holiday traditions you look forward to?

A Christmas Tradition Revisited

With all the craziness of the upcoming Christmas holiday, I haven't had time to think of a subject for today's post. Here's a post I wrote about holiday traditions in 2011.

 

Everyone I know has at least one holiday tradition they look forward to every year from Black Friday shopping to family gatherings to attending that one special holiday party every year. 

I have two traditions I look forward to.  One is to watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.  I’m well past the age of believing in Santa Claus and flying reindeer, but it’s just not Christmas if I don’t watch Rudolph.  Every year, the night it’s on, I get in bed, prop up my pillows, and snuggle under my big fluffy comforter and watch the cartoon while my cat curls up at my feet.  Of course, there’s always a cup of hot chocolate involved too.

The most important tradition though is making Christmas cookies with my mom.  She started teaching me to cook when I was four years old.  Every December we would make cut out cookies in various holiday shapes.  She would mix the dough on a Friday evening and put it in the refrigerator over night.   My brothers and sisters and I would take turns peering into the refrigerator at the bowl of dough and asking when it would be ready for baking.

Finally, Saturday afternoon would come and she’d pronounce it ready.  She would roll it out and place the cutters on the dough.  Each one of my siblings and I would get a turn to push the cutters down into the dough.  My mom would peel away the excess, put the cut out pieces onto a baking sheet and into the oven.  We’d repeat the process over and over until every scrap of dough had been formed into a cookie.

Rows and rows of angels, reindeers, snowmen, Christmas trees, holly leaves, tree ornaments, and Santa Claus cookies would fill one end of the table to cool then be packed away until the next day, the most important day of all – the day we would frost them. 

My mom would make the frosting and allow each one of us to stir drops of food coloring into bowls of white icing.  We’d have a rainbow of colors and little bottles of colored sugar to decorate the cookies with.  We’d spend the afternoon decorating the cookies, making sure the Santa cookies were frosted red and white to represent his suit, the snowmen white with a strip of yellow around his neck and down his stomach to represent his scarf.  Christmas trees had brown frosting for the trunk and green frosting for the leaves and a dot of yellow at the top for the star just to describe a few.  When we were finished, my mom would lay them on wax paper to set.  We would ooh and ah over them like they were the most magnificent cookies ever made.

My brothers and sisters are all married with children now and building their own holiday traditions but for two days every December my siblings and I gather together and make Christmas cut out cookies with my mom.  It’s a tradition I hope we’re able to continue for many years to come.

This I know for sure...

Most everyone I know has some sort of holiday tradition they take part in every year. My holiday tradition is to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I missed it when it was broadcast on television this year. Actually, I think I was out Christmas shopping that evening. I have it on DVD so I wasn't too upset.

Christmas Eve is less than a week away and I still haven't had a chance to sit down and watch it. Along with all the daily life responsibilities, I have mounds of presents to wrap. (That's a subject for another post, maybe Monday's.) I still have baking to do, and yes, a tiny bit of shopping left. I'll have the last couple of gifts bought this weekend. I know what they are, I just need to get to the store and purchase them.

One thing is for certain -- It just doesn't seem like Christmas without a viewing of Rudolph. I'm determined to find the time to watch my favorite holiday cartoon even if I end up watching it late Christmas Eve.