Saturday, December 20, 2008

Christmas Traditions? Well...

Someone recently asked me if my family had any Christmas traditions. I wanted so badly to say yes, but the truth is, we really don't. It's odd, really, given that my family is pretty traditional. Conservative, even. But when it came to celebrations, we just weren't that good at them.

Looking back, I think there were probably several factors that contributed to our lack of celebratory skills. My parents grew up in the Depression, in rural Alabama. Both came from large families who had to struggle to make ends meet, my mother's side even more than my father's side. Celebrations may have seemed like luxuries to them, financially speaking. Also, my parents were both largely homebodies. They didn't get a lot out of parties and socializing, so we just didn't do much of it, even as a family. Birthdays were noted, we generally received presents, but other than a party or two when we were kids, we didn't do much to celebrate, other than buy a cake and have a piece after dinner.

Christmas was probably our biggest celebration of the year, for a lot of reasons. My family is religious, so the spiritual aspect of the day was important to us. And as kids, of course, we loved the presents. But we didn't have a real ritual to the season, like putting up the Christmas tree at the same time every year, or visiting the same relatives every year, or anything that structured. How we celebrated Christmas often depended on what kind of mood we were in that year. So rather than a string of Christmas traditions, I have a string of Christmas memories instead, disjointed, often distant, yet nevertheless experiences that have stuck with me over the span of time.

One of my most lasting Christmas memories happened when I was fifteen. My father was the kind of man who didn't let things like laws get in the way of saving a few bucks. Rather than going to a Christmas tree farm that year, he decided to procure the tree from the roadside somewhere. So in he and my brother came, dragging something that would have made Charlie Brown's Christmas tree look classy in comparison. It was basically a sapling, best I can tell, with short, sharp needles spiking every branch. It was four times as tall as it was wide, so spindly that my mother had to sew the top of the tree to the curtains to keep it standing upright. My mother, my sister and I laughed at that tree so much it probably had a complex.

But the tree got the last laugh. For long after the tree was gone, we were stepping on those short, piercing needles it had shed into the carpet, and no amount of vacuuming could spare us.

I've had prettier Christmas trees. I've had much bigger ones. But that pitiful little Christmas tree is the one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Come to think of it, we do tell that tree story every year around Christmas time. So maybe we do have a tradition after all.

Paula Graves
http://www.paulagraves.com/

12 comments:

  1. I remember a tree with those short, piercing needles. My roommate and I had one she cut down the first year I taught. It however was from a place that allowed you to cut your own tree.

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  2. I don't know for sure that my dad just pulled over and cut a tree from the roadside, to be honest. I'm pretty sure he did, however, because no way he'd pay money for that...thing...he brought home. ;)

    Mostly after that, we just went with an artificial tree. I think my mother may have put her foot down or something.

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  3. Traditions are important to most families, but this year we are going to change things around and instead of all of our family at our house, we will be going to our son's home. I am waiting to see what traditions were important to him and what new traditions they start with their young family.
    We had an artificial tree that insisted on tipping over the day after Christmas one year. It never fell completely over because it fell in slow motion and someone was always there to stop it's fall and stand it back up. We, too, tell that story every year.

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  4. As a child we always went to grandmother's house for Christmas, but the grandparents are long gone now so we go to my sisters house which was my mother's house. I guess you can say that I still go home for Christmas. We go there on Christmas eve and to my hubby's mother's house on Christmas Day.

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  5. We don't have any specific traditions that have to be observed on Christmas. We do celebrate with my side of the family on Christmas Day if that is a tradition and there are always presents and plenty of food, wine and desserts.

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  6. My family doesn't have any traditions.

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  7. We don't really have traditions, but my brother and I like to open presents at midnight.

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  8. My family doesn't have any traditions for Christmas but we usually have dinner at my niece's house.

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  9. I guess the only "tradition" we've had is baking cookies on Christmas Eve.

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  10. Y'all are making me feel less weird. Thanks!

    I had friends who opened their presents on Christmas Eve, I guess so they could sleep late Christmas morning or something. It just seemed so wrong to me, though. I loved the whole getting up on Christmas morning at an abominably early hour and checking out what Santa left under the tree, sometimes before the parents got up. (Only you could never, ever actually play with the presents until the parents got up, because that would be bad karma for the next Christmas).

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  11. I know we carry traditions from both sides of our family into the holiday's, there is one that I started, when my daughters were little, it was always difficult to get everyone to sit down for Christmas Day dinner. There were toys and games to be played with. So instead of fighting fate, I started having Christmas Eve Dinner, before all the boxes and presents were opened, all attention spans were focused on the dining room table :).

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  12. Ugh. I'd hate to open everything on Christmas Eve. Usually, we allow the kids to open 1 present on Christmas Eve (well, lookie there. I do have a family tradition afterall)but this year... nuh-uh. We'll just go to my bro's house Christmas Eve & they can have their presents from him then.

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