My Favorite Christmas Traditions

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The holidays are steeped in tradition. From visiting with friends and family, to eating certain foods, getting a new ornament, and singing carols; from watching a favorite holiday movie or seeing a show to touring extravagant Christmas light displays, and opening a present (or two) on Christmas Eve. The list can go on and on and on. So on this third day of Blogmas, I thought I’d share three Christmas traditions I look forward to each year.

Shopping with my Dad on Christmas Eve

For as long as I can remember, my dad and I have gone shopping for my mom on Christmas Eve. When I was little, he used to wear a Santa hat on our excursions, and with his beard, the little kids who saw him as we walked through the mall would point and call him “Santa!” He still wears the hat sometimes. A couple of years ago it was quite warm on Dec 24 and he wore it with shorts, haha..

There was one year not that long ago (I just asked Siri and it was 2014) where we didn’t get to do our annual outing. Christmas was a Thursday, and instead of having off our normal Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, my office switched it to the day after Christmas so we could have a 4-day weekend. Which was very nice. But it messed with our tradition.

Two things have changed over the years, my mom has become harder to shop for, and if we can actually come up with something to get her it’s been harder to find what we’re looking for at the last minute. Even our tried and true stop at Godiva is a thing of the past, they closed up shop at the local mall. But it’s still something I look forward to each year. An adventure with my dad. Even as it becomes more stressful.

Lunch with my Bestie and our Mamas

Every year, sometime around the holidays (sometimes in January), my bestie and our mamas go out for lunch to celebrate the Christmas holiday together. We’ve been going to the Cheesecake Factory pretty much every year for a while now. Then we make our way back to my parent’s house and we have some coffee and dessert (not Cheesecake though!) and exchange gifts and talk some more.

I’m not 100% certain when this tradition started, but sometime since we graduated college in 2006? Or maybe high school? We grew up together pretty much every day since the first day of first grade. But after we graduated high school, we went to different colleges. And now we live in different towns and have jobs and our own lives. We are in touch all the time. And we make it a point to get together throughout the year, but the Christmas lunch with our moms is always something special to look forward to.

Christmas Eve at My House

Celebrating Christmas Eve at my house is the newest tradition in my trio of favorites. In 2015, after buying my house, I bought myself a KitchenAid stand mixer and that year for Christmas I asked for the attachments to make pasta. Rather than lugging the mixer to my parents’ house, they came to me. And now we’ve done that for the past three years.

We make the homemade pasta (“homemades” as my dad affectionately refers to them in honor of my Italian mama’s mama and her homemade pasta), my parents argue a bit over how the pasta is being made, and then we eat the pasta. Yum! Can you tell I love pasta? And then we open all of the presents we got for one another before we say good night.

I’m not sure we’re doing the pasta this year though. I’ve heard rumblings of bouillabaisse instead. So we shall see…

 

What are your favorite traditions?

Many thanks and much love,
laf

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