Transitions and traditions mashup

What is your family’s favorite Christmas tradition? This is one of my favorite conversation starters. I love to hear how families celebrate this major holiday, what traditions survived from grandparents, great-grandparents and further back into the ancestral bank.
For me, my family, us kids would wake up Christmas morning to find stockings with little wrapped gifts, like a comb, underwear, a toy, pack of cards, a comic book and a candy cane or candy bar. This was observed every year through high school. For as long as we were still living at home.
Another tradition: The cats got wrapped catnip mouses. Except one year, Mom decided it wasn’t necessary. So, no mouses. The cats knew they’d been stiffed. They went from kid to kid, inspecting our loot, pawing through discarded wrapping paper as we opened our stocking gifts while sitting on the living room floor. They both, Nappy and Desi, cried plaintively and were visibly upset all morning long. Mom vowed to never let them down again and made sure they had their wrapped catnip mouses each year after that.
After stockings came a breakfast of homemade pastries of some sort, Danish Puff, cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, Pepperidge Farms turnovers (OK, not always homemade) and hot cocoa. Then we’d get dressed and our Grandma Miller, Dad’s mom Ruby, would journey the half block from her house to join us and open presents Mom and Dad had gotten all of us and those we gave each other.
Mom made sure each of us kids purchased a gift for everyone with our own allowance money. Our siblings, Mom and Dad and our grandparents meant eight presents we each had to purchase, wrap and place under the tree. Dad played Santa and selected each gift from under the tree and handed them out one-by-by, making sure everyone got to see what each present was as we watched them unwrapped. And, more importantly to me, we got to see the recipient’s reaction to the gift we’d given them.
I had friends whose Christmas present opening tradition was a free-for-all. Over and done in minutes. I much preferred my family’s longer drawn-out method that emphasized seeing what everyone received from whom and their reactions. Just better. Just my opinion.
Before the big day, we had the tree trimming, usually the first week or so in December. There were a few cherished ornaments that us kids took turns each year to hang and carefully place on a branch in a very visible spot, higher up on the tree so the cats couldn’t knock it down and break it. And, we had a nativity creche in our TV room on the bookcase. Each figurine was designated to a family member -- the shepherd, sheep, kings and camel. A week or two before Christmas each evening, we would read a verse out of Luke in the Bible and move our figurine a skoosh closer to the creche. The sheep could really dance across those couple inches of shelf. The shepherd and sheep starting a couple feet from the left, and the kings and camel starting a foot or so from the right. By Christmas Eve, they reached the stable.
Each of us got to place various figures of the Holy family ensemble into the stable. First the donkey and cow against the back wall of the creche; then Gabriel the angel hung above; then Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus in the manger, while we read the final verse about Jesus being born. That was always a cherished part of our Christmas celebration until it faded away when we got into high school and got busy with other things. Teenagers. Whatcha gonna do?
Can’t forget those early 1960s Christmas TV specials: Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with Snowman Burl Ives narrating and Norelco electric razors buzzing through the snow for commercials. Frosty the Snowman. The original Dr. Seuss animated The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love when Linus recites the Bible story of Jesus’ birth as the meaning of Christmas. Just superb.
Hallmark Christmas movies are now streaming year-round. Love those, too. Then the music. I love traditional Christmas hymns and carols. I look forward to these flooding the radio waves. And, I actually have “I HEART Christmas” play in my car occasionally throughout the year.
So, yes, I’m one of those people.
Stay tuned for Part II.