Spectacular Christmas Traditions....
with a couple of Big Fat Fails sprinkled in
Christmas is coming! It’s time to deck the halls and dance your favorite reindeer dance! I love celebrating the birth of our Savior, but I also treasure all the fun that Christmas traditions bring. I’ve always believed Christmas and traditions go hand in hand, so I’d like to share some that make our holidays so special.
Over the years, our family has created quite a few traditions…so many that we can’t fit them all into a 3-day event! Don’t get me wrong ---we aren’t made up of Martha Stewart/Magnolia perfectionist. Quite the opposite. But we do enjoy a good laugh and enjoy revisiting each year those fun traditions that have made us merry. Even if your family isn’t near, you can invite friends over to start your own traditions! Here are my top three for you:
Making cranberry sauce
If we’re having turkey for Christmas dinner, it’s a given there will be homemade cranberry sauce lovingly prepared the night before. We still use an old-fashioned sausage grinder that my Mom bought decades ago. (EBay has them on sale starting at $19.)
· The recipe is simple: Buy 3 navel oranges, 3 tart apples (we use Granny Smith or Honey Crisp, but any apple will do) and 2 bags of fresh cranberries—most grocery stores have them at Christmas time. Cut fruit into slices, and feed them into the grinder, alternating the 3 ingredients. Make sure you have a pie pan underneath the spout to catch all the yumminess coming out! (We also use another pie pan to catch the juice being squeezed out.) Then add 2 to 2 1/2 cups of sugar to the mixture, according to your taste. It should taste both tart and sweet. Keep it overnight in the fridge before serving the next day, so all the fruit has time to absorb the juices.
· The Fun: We always have a “Quality Control Supervisor”—one to three people to add the fruit, and someone to turn the crank—the most desired job for the kids. My husband does his Julia Child impression while we video tape the instructions to his “TV viewership.” Have people try to do their best Julia Child impression!
· Involve everyone: This is a great family event that can involve elementary age kids up to the elderly. Some of us don’t even like the taste of the tart sauce, but it’s okay…we keep making it due to the fun we have while doing it! Just make sure kiddos keep their fingers away from the grinder.
Making Ornaments
Every year, someone is assigned to plan and bring the components for all of us to make a Christmas ornament. Ornaments that are to be crafted at our home—not bought from a store. In the past, we’ve made ornaments out of measuring spoons, photos, toilet paper rolls, old jewelry, ribbon (a fail), and twine/balloon (a BIG fail). I have dedicated a 4-foot tree just to display these ornaments --- including the failures --- with a sign beneath the tree explaining, for example, exactly why I have a measuring spoon in my tree!
Creating Funny Family Photos
I usually come up with something funny to add to the annual family photograph. In the past, we’ve worn big, red waxy candy lip or taped the tips of our noses to our foreheads. One year my brother brought Groucho Marx glasses with attached noses and springy eyeballs for everyone. Once, when I didn’t have time to prepare beforehand, we used what we had available, drawing mustaches on with my eyeliner—hysterical! Another memorable year was when we made Christmas cookies that were a SUPER BIG FAIL—they all flattened out like pancakes. So we decorated the flat cookies to look like each one of us, and took pictures with each of us holding our look-alike cookie! (Hint: They really did not look like us, but we tried…)
Reading Luke 2
Before we open the presents on Christmas day, the Christmas story found in the Bible in Luke, chapter two, is read aloud to the family. For many years, my father read not only the story of the birth of Jesus … but also continued reading well past the “Christmas story” to when Jesus was 12 years old in the temple --- all while we kids were anxiously awaiting to OPEN THE PRESENTS!! But reading about the birth of Jesus always brings us back to the REAL reason for the season…and reminds us to be thankful for our families, our wacky traditions, and God’s many blessings.
So whether the tradition is something that makes you feel all mushy-gushy with happiness, or whether it’s a Big Fat Fail, we can embrace it all, and be grateful for our messy lives and traditions shared with our loved family and friends. KIIP (Keep It In Perspective!) EnJOY your Christmas!