A full list of every Christmas tradition I've ever held true throughout my life, some old and outdated, some new and still going.
- When I was a young child, my parents had a tradition that predates the "Elf on a Shelf" craze of the current decade. Instead of sending his elf, Santa sent his "pixies" to watch my sisters and me, and make sure we were good children and deserved our presents. These "pixies" were never seen, but they occasionally left small gifts, like candy or whatever, to prove that they were there, always watching. My mother likes to say now that they missed an opportunity to market this Pixie idea and make some money, and Elf on a Shelf just got there first. Not sure how one would market invisible, omniscient creatures to the mass public, but...
- We also used to love doing those Advent Calendars. Usually that was the pixies first gift, on Thanksgiving. My sisters and I would take turns opening the doors and eating the little cheap pieces of chocolate. Boy oh boy, eating 0.5 oz. of chocolate at breakfast before school, that was a treat. It's the little things, ain't it?
- My family was a Fresh Tree family, so every year, we'd roll the minivan to the local Christmas Tree lot and pick out a good one. The closest, and probably most cost-effective, was (and still is) behind Oxford Beer Distributors. I guess it's some extra money during the holiday season for the family that ran the beer store. One time, when I was nineteen years old, I totally forgot that this was the tradition, and after using my fake ID to get a few cases of Natty, I had to literally sprint across the parking lot to avoid my dad and sister, tying the ol' tree to the roof of the minivan, two spots away from the entrance of the store. Underage drinking—a tradition that requires no holiday in my neighborhood.
- We didn't have a stately tree. Ornaments were thrown on the tree with abandon. The tree was decorated with a hodgepodge of knickknacks, heirlooms, and crafted bullshit. There was a popsicle stick snowman that I made in first grade, a few "baby's first Christmas" ornaments, little trinkets that corresponded to our lifestyles (I always hung a little snare drum, my dad would hang a tiny mailbox, and so on).
- This is a tradition that me and Pam carry on here in our own home. A few personal ornaments made the trip from Rockledge to Port Richmond (that popsicle snowman from '96 is hanging on our tree as we speak), and we round the tree out with shit we've accumulated over the past four Christmases alone—First Xmas in New Home ornaments, First Xmas Married ornaments, a mini sixer of Pepsi to piss off my Coca-Cola-employed brother-in-law, etc. And let's not forget the important homemade Hamm's star that traditionally hangs right below that actual star atop the tree.
- When I was younger we used to have a VHS tape with the classic Christmas TV specials on it, and that fucker got worn out every year. I'm trying to think of what was on there. I know Muppet Family Christmas had to be there. Peanuts, definitely. Eureka's Castle had a good special, if you remember that show. I distinctly remember a Garfield Christmas special; me and Pam watched that again this year, and boy, it did NOT hold up. The Grinch maybe? Bottom line, we had a VHS tape with Christmas specials on it, and we loved that thing.
- Muppet Family Christmas is still on the docket every year with me and Pam, but otherwise, the Christmas stuff we watch consistently every year boils down to five movies. 1) Muppet Christmas Carol, 2) Christmas Story, 3) Love Actually, 4) Christmas Vacation, 5) It's a Wonderful Life.
- Another thing that's nice to watch during the holidays is old Christmas movies. I've avoided my own family Christmas home movies for the last few years, but we used to watch them all the time when we were younger. We cracked open Pam's family home movies the other day, the first time that I personally had ever seen them. I am happy to report that Pam was just as cute three decades ago as she is now. (Sidenote: when my sister-in-law was two years old, she looked EXACTLY like my niece does now, except if my niece wore a '60s Bob Dylan wig.)
- My old parish, Presentation B.V.M. used to have a Christmas Bazaar every year, which was a pretty big deal in grade school. It afforded those of us kids with a limited income (like, $5 to spend) an opportunity to buy gifts for family, like a mini toy screwdriver for Dad and a homemade cookie for Mom. (I was in 3rd grade, give me a fucking break.) Also at the Bazaar were gambling wheels and Idaho Pull Tabs, yes a Catholic Church was encouraging gambling among young children. There was something special about the Christmas Bazaar. It really leaned hard into that feeling of Christmas, that magical time during the year. Of course, one year, we got a new parish priest who was way too strict. His rule of law stipulated that the Church cannot celebrate Christmas until Christmas itself. The weeks before Christmas were Advent, you see, and so it was a time of waiting, not a time of celebrating. So the Christmas Bazaar was cancelled. Yes, this is the same priest from this story we are talking about here.
- Making my Christmas List every year was a big deal, especially in my teenage years. I had to pick like five CDs to ask my parents for. This was before I knew how to steal music from the internet, so I would need these albums to sustain my hunger for new music for a few months.
- I'm kind of embarrassed at this point about how much shit we used to get under the tree every year. I'm not saying I didn't appreciate it all, even at the time. I tried not to be spoiled, and I tried not to take it for granted. But it was too much shit. We didn't need all these gifts. I talked with Pam about this the other day. I feel when our child(ren) are older, it would be prudent to take it easy on the gifts. I also want to start a tradition where me and Pam and the kids go out and pick out toys to donate to charities, to try to instill in my own children the idea that Christmas is about giving, not receiving.
- Pam and I usually try to do something "Christmas-y" every year, like go and see Christmas lights somewhere or something similar. This year we drove up to Longwood Gardens and saw their light display, which was beautiful and intricate. We also walked through the Macy's Dickens display, which hasn't changed in decades. This tradition of Christmas-y outings are our attempts at keeping that Christmas spirit alive from when we were younger, back when Christmas Bazaars and Pixies achieved the same outcome.
- When I was a Boy Scout, one of the worst traditions was the Scouts helping out with the Parish Christmas Tree Sale. The trade-off was that we would give the Church free labor, and they would in turn sell the Troop's homemade Christmas Wreaths and let us keep the profits. The "free labor" basically involved all us young kids chilling around the fire in a trash can, trying to keep warm, and eating the free pastries, and looking on as other people bundled up the purchased trees. (I'm starting to realize that I spent a lot of fucking time at Church in my youth.)
- One tradition that will never die is participating in a White Elephant every year, at some party. That's when you buy a general gift, and put it in a pile, and one person picks a gift, the next person can pick another gift or steal, etc. Some are better than others. The best White Elephants have a nice mixture of enviable gifts and gag gifts. Other White Elephants have, like, 25 gift bags of candles.
- Better than White Elephant is Secret Santa, when you pick someone's name out of a hat, and buy a gift specifically for that person. I prefer this over White Elephant because Secret Santa is more personal. You can show the person that, yes, I know you, and here is the perfect gift just for you. My La Salle friends do a Secret Santa every year, and the gifts get pretty creative. I apologize in advanced to whoever picked my name out of the (virtual) hat this year, since I am no longer eligible to receive a case of beer.
- I tried starting a tradition when we were teenagers of decorating a Christmas Tree at Burholme Park and drinking Lionshead, but that didn't really work out very well.
- The Christmas tradition I hate the most is doing my Christmas shopping at the very last minute. I do it every fucking year. I can't help it. Typing this now, I still have half my family to buy for. Target is going to be a fucking mess. Gift cards for everyone!!!
- We no longer have to buy gifts for any of the siblings. A tradition that was started last year was that we would forgo gifts and instead go out to dinner together sometime in January. We did this with siblings on both sides of the family last year, and are doing it this year too. That's six fewer gifts to buy! It's great!
- Back in the day, the Christmas Eve tradition was to go over my grandmom and grandpop's house in Lawncrest. When I wrote the story about Grandpop, I had all those Christmas Eves in mind for sure. Grandpop would always be decked out in the same outfit—white pants, green shirt, red sweater, white shoes (a few of my cousins have replicated the outfit in recent years as a tribute). There were so many people that gift-giving was limited to exchanges between godparents and godchildren (it was almost a 1:1 ratio).
- Oh, and also, the Christmas Bags. Grandpop would put shopping bags together full of gifts for each grandchild, and staple the bags to the wall, each one with a grandkid's (nick)name on it. The "gifts" were absurd, ranging from dollar store knickknacks to a pair of Grandpop's old slippers. As I'm typing it, this all sounds like the work of someone struggling with dementia. I am 99% that wasn't the case. It was just Grandpop being Grandpop. I'm just realizing now that I take after Grandpop when it comes to those aforementioned White Elephant gifts. Last year I put a $20 Wendy's giftcard inside of a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. That's totally a Grandpop move. The tradition lives on.
- Another tradition with Christmas Eve was that every food staple of this family gathering was coincidentally a food that I despised. The meal was as follows, every year: ham, pineapple stuffing, homemade macaroni and cheese, cold shrimp. From ages six to fifteen, these were like my four least favorite foods of all time. So my personal tradition was the annual Christmas Eve Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. To this day, I still get abnormally hungry every Christmas Eve, I swear to god. I think it's a holdover from earlier, pickier years.
- Since Pam and I started our joint life together, our family has doubled in size, and so naturally, Christmas traditions in both families butt up against each other. Christmas Eve is a bit tough, because Pam's parents also have had a traditional Christmas Eve Party every year. We do what every newly married couple does, and splits time as evenly as we can, despite both parties being geographically far away from us. So Pam's and my tradition is now spending half our Christmas Eve in the car. Hey, at least we are spending it together!
- At some point I used to go to Mass every Christmas, either that day or the night before. We obviously don't do this anymore, thank fucking christ.
- Christmas morning growing up was the same for years. My sisters and I would wake up at some ungodly hour, out of excitement. My parents, however, had set a rock-solid wake-up time of 7:00 AM, and we were not to disturb them until then, under penalty of death. (Obviously, they wanted sleep after staying up late to put together toys and drink some more or whatever, but we didn't know it at the time.) And so we would hang out in the dark and talk about how excited we were to get our gifts, and around 6:55 we would circle around the clock, and the very second that the clock turned seven, all three of us would run into our parents' room and yell MERRY CHRISTMAS and jump on the bed and Mom and Dad would groan and ask please for a little more sleep but then reluctantly get up and start the best day of the year.
- A few more Christmas morning definites: the three of us getting our picture taken at the top of the steps before we came down and started opening gifts; the video camera set up and capturing the whole thing; music was playing, the selection for many years primarily John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, but eventually that switched to Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas; breakfast was a bangin' casserole made with eggs, sausage, mushrooms; usually the rest of the day playing whatever video game was under the tree; a gift of lottery tickets from Mom-Mom and Pappy, and never winning a goddamn thing.
- Same with Christmas Eve, Pam's and my Christmas Day tradition is spending as much time as we can with family. We cheated last year and just had Christmas Day at our house so we didn't have to go anywhere and both families just came to us. This year, we'll be driving around some more, and then Pammy is sleeping because she has work Christmas Night.
- Me and Pam don't go too crazy with the gifts. Usually one, nice, thoughtful gift will suffice. A tradition for me is that I always tell Pammy that I'm going to get her a vacuum or some other home appliance, because she fucking haaaates that joke, so of course I'm going to joke about it every year. If this hasn't been established yet, I'm fucking terrible at gift-giving. Just fucking awful. But usually I find a way to get one nice gift for Pam at least (let's not talk about 2015).
Merry Christmas from Puke on Your Birthday!!!
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