Christmas Traditions

Christmas Traditions are not what you decide or plan to do during this season.

The traditions are what we [as we reflect back] always did-we generally don't decide what our traditions will be..we just do what we do then we see later what it was [the traditions].

About the time our [only] daughter was in the first grade we had our first family Christmas Eve buffet. I can't recall for sure what motivated me to do this but I do know I wanted that special Christmas atmosphere, a bit of formality perhaps.
At some point I informed the entire family that Christmas Eve dinner/meal [ it became a buffet ] would be a dress up time. Everyone was required to 'dress' for the evening. I don't know what they thought about it; I didn't ask. This is what we were going to do. I wanted Christmas to be  more than watching for Santa and getting up to see  gifts  under the tree. I wish I had made notes about those first Christmas Eve parties because I cannot remember a lot of details.

I set about to arrange our table with tablecloth and napkins and whatever  I thought festive at that time/candles,etc. The meal was an assortment of all the goodies I had bought or cooked for Christmas. The table [buffet style] was set with the prettiest dishes I had. I think we had a hot percolator punch.

From that year on we did this every Christmas Eve. It did  grow to be a more elaborate spread as time passed and my taste and creativity changed.

That's one of the things I miss most about Christmas as things change, the children are grown up, have their own families and either are not at our house or even if we are at their home they do things differently.  I don't really know if this tradition was that special to them.

Change is normal,  but it is not always easy to accept. We understand  we are 'counting down' and there won't be many more of these wonderful seasons to celebrate together with our children and grands. They don't really know that.  With health issues not being a major thing for either of us we aren't at a place where we are ready to be  taken care of. We still love doing all the Christmas stuff, putting up a big tree, making the house festive and fun, stringing outdoor lights and filling the bags with sand for luminaries outside.  It's still fun to watch for "almost dark" and time to turn on all the lights then the routine of turning them off somewhere around 9 or 10 p.m...I still want to "Do Christmas".

 In our seventh and eighth decade of life It appears we need to consider some new ways of doing Christmas..easier said than done. This is not negative it's just dealing with our realities. Lord help me not to be totally self involved.  ...to be continued.