Christmas Traditions, Mishalak Style
Dec. 25th, 2003 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakA Pointless Story
My family’s Christmas traditions seem to be one part practicality and one part "We’ve always done things this way and we don’t know why". For example we have almost always opened our gifts to one another on Christmas Eve rather than on Christmas Day. I’m told this is actually the standard in many parts of Europe like Sweden, where some of my ancestors came from. The practical part was that my father often had to work around Christmas being an airline pilot, though he could often finagle having at least part of either one day off. That often was Christmas Eve. Travel is heaviest around the holidays so often airline families have to make compromises in the way they celebrate them.
First came dinner and the ritual I probably loved best. Getting out the good silver, the fine china, and the crystal glasses. How I celebrated in my heart when I was finally allowed to have one of these at about age seven. I loved to perfectly arrange every dish and utensil on the table. A Victorian Butler would have had trouble faulting my careful place settings. Dinner was almost a repeat of Thanksgiving with the occasional substitution of a ham for a turkey, and in one notable instance a goose, which I really enjoyed and so did the rest of the family.
After cleaning up we would all have a slice of our Christmas Bread and often a glass of eggnog with brandy. The Christmas Bread is something halfway between cake and bread with sultanas and a sugary cinnamon topping. It is lovely reheated with a little butter and making it is one of the big traditions in our household. It isn’t easy; it has a tendency to fall especially at our high altitude. When I was a kid we always were admonished not to run around so much when the bread was baking lest we disturb it.
Finally we would light up our tree, usually the tallest tree my father could find and fit into the house. He has a thing for doing thing big and many of us suspect that his new house was built with vaulted ceilings in the main area of the house just so he could have a 12-foot Christmas tree. It would have been decorated as much as a month before, on the reasoning that the trees on the lots were already cut and wouldn’t get any fresher by sitting out. My sister and I, and later on my younger brother, were often the most enthusiastic decorators. We weighed the tree down with lots of ornament, competing to find the most perfect place for particular favorites.
So with our tree lit up we would each take a present and open in turn. Often with my father snapping pictures of us as we did so. My sister tried to avoid having her picture taken, I have never totally understood why. The taking of photographs was really important to my father; he has several books of our family history through his very professional snapshots. A lot of our gifts were of clothes or other practical things, but there would be the one big gift that we’d throw up our hands in surprise at. A huge thing of legos, a beautiful doll, a book I really wanted.
Slowly things would wind down to either going to midnight mass or to bed. If we didn’t go to mass at midnight we would try to hit one of the early ones the next day trying (often in vain) to avoid one packed with one and twice a year Catholics. In the morning we would awake to find the red flannel stockings made and decorated by my mother filled with three things and an additional smaller gift. Inside we would find an orange, a bag of nuts, and a bag of hard candy. I loved the hard candy, it was usually the sort made into ribbons or with pictures like a crystalline button of sugar. The other present would often be something like an inexpensive watch or maybe a small toy. The rest of the day would be about relaxing and cleaning up any rubbish that had not been taken care of the night before and carefully repacking any ribbons, bows, or wrapping paper that could be used another year. We’re a thrifty bunch, our family.
So that’s Christmas in my mind.
My family’s Christmas traditions seem to be one part practicality and one part "We’ve always done things this way and we don’t know why". For example we have almost always opened our gifts to one another on Christmas Eve rather than on Christmas Day. I’m told this is actually the standard in many parts of Europe like Sweden, where some of my ancestors came from. The practical part was that my father often had to work around Christmas being an airline pilot, though he could often finagle having at least part of either one day off. That often was Christmas Eve. Travel is heaviest around the holidays so often airline families have to make compromises in the way they celebrate them.
First came dinner and the ritual I probably loved best. Getting out the good silver, the fine china, and the crystal glasses. How I celebrated in my heart when I was finally allowed to have one of these at about age seven. I loved to perfectly arrange every dish and utensil on the table. A Victorian Butler would have had trouble faulting my careful place settings. Dinner was almost a repeat of Thanksgiving with the occasional substitution of a ham for a turkey, and in one notable instance a goose, which I really enjoyed and so did the rest of the family.
After cleaning up we would all have a slice of our Christmas Bread and often a glass of eggnog with brandy. The Christmas Bread is something halfway between cake and bread with sultanas and a sugary cinnamon topping. It is lovely reheated with a little butter and making it is one of the big traditions in our household. It isn’t easy; it has a tendency to fall especially at our high altitude. When I was a kid we always were admonished not to run around so much when the bread was baking lest we disturb it.
Finally we would light up our tree, usually the tallest tree my father could find and fit into the house. He has a thing for doing thing big and many of us suspect that his new house was built with vaulted ceilings in the main area of the house just so he could have a 12-foot Christmas tree. It would have been decorated as much as a month before, on the reasoning that the trees on the lots were already cut and wouldn’t get any fresher by sitting out. My sister and I, and later on my younger brother, were often the most enthusiastic decorators. We weighed the tree down with lots of ornament, competing to find the most perfect place for particular favorites.
So with our tree lit up we would each take a present and open in turn. Often with my father snapping pictures of us as we did so. My sister tried to avoid having her picture taken, I have never totally understood why. The taking of photographs was really important to my father; he has several books of our family history through his very professional snapshots. A lot of our gifts were of clothes or other practical things, but there would be the one big gift that we’d throw up our hands in surprise at. A huge thing of legos, a beautiful doll, a book I really wanted.
Slowly things would wind down to either going to midnight mass or to bed. If we didn’t go to mass at midnight we would try to hit one of the early ones the next day trying (often in vain) to avoid one packed with one and twice a year Catholics. In the morning we would awake to find the red flannel stockings made and decorated by my mother filled with three things and an additional smaller gift. Inside we would find an orange, a bag of nuts, and a bag of hard candy. I loved the hard candy, it was usually the sort made into ribbons or with pictures like a crystalline button of sugar. The other present would often be something like an inexpensive watch or maybe a small toy. The rest of the day would be about relaxing and cleaning up any rubbish that had not been taken care of the night before and carefully repacking any ribbons, bows, or wrapping paper that could be used another year. We’re a thrifty bunch, our family.
So that’s Christmas in my mind.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-26 09:14 am (UTC)At the same time, you have, or are developing, a very resilient inner core. You're a fascinating combination of Little House on the Prairie, and genteel aesthete.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-26 09:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-26 11:07 am (UTC)