Christmas Traditions and Memories

My youngest grandson’s teacher asked grandparents to write a letter to her class and describe our family’s Christmas traditions when we were young. I shared much of this post in my letter. If I could relive one day from childhood, I’d choose this memory of our family together on Christmas Day.

Mom and Dad loaded my two older brothers, younger sister, and me into their Ford station wagon after we opened our gifts at home. We traveled across town to my grandparents’ house. There were eight adults and nine children together in a crowded living room. We ate a big dinner of ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, fruit salad, and my grandmother’s pumpkin pie and crumb cake. My grandmother was a good cook. She made mincemeat pies with apples, meat, and raisins, but I stuck up my nose at those.

When I was five, I wanted to be near my great-grandmother and hold her hand. She always sat in her favorite chair in the kitchen where she could watch everyone there and everyone in the living room too. In her hand she always held an embroidered hankie edged with lace. When she died, my grandmother gave me one of great-grandma’s hankies to remember her.

My cousin and I sat together in this big old chair every year. I don’t remember who got the honor of sitting in that chair once we grew too big and no longer fit in it together.

I looked forward to something my grandfather did for us. He emptied walnut shells, put coins inside, and glued the shells back together. He then hung them on a small tree. They looked like little ornaments. How he cracked them open without destroying them I’ll never know. After we ate our dinner on Christmas Day, he gave us permission to pick a walnut from the tree to find out what it held. We received pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Thought we were rich!

Grandpa then handed out each gift, one at a time, and we opened it before he handed out the next gift. He wanted to make sure everyone saw what we received and heard us tell the gift-giver, “Thank you.”

So much fun! I enjoyed being together with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins to celebrate Christmas as a family.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you and your families share special memories for years to come.