With Christmas around the corner, we thought we would share our favorite holiday memories and traditions. This year we want to celebrate with our family and friends but may have to limit ourselves to video chat and phone calls. Of course, this does not mean we will limit our traditions, but change them in subtle ways to support the health and safety of our community. And who knows? Maybe we will discover new traditions.
Long-Standing Family Traditions
I have a young son so we’ve been doing the Elf on the Shelf for the past few years. “Mr. Elf” as my son has named him, shows up on Thanksgiving and stays until Christmas. We have fun staging him all around the house and my son wakes up excited every morning to see where Mr. Elf is!
Instead of an Advent calendar, we are going to do The Giving Manger. The Giving Manger focuses on giving back to others through acts of kindness or service. A piece of straw is placed in the manger for each good deed. On Christmas Day, baby Jesus is placed in the manger that has been filled with love. I gifted this to our niece and nephews as well so we can all focus on what the holiday season is truly about.
As a family, we always volunteer with two foundations that are near and dear to our hearts. We get dressed up and do bell ringing for the Salvation Army. With the challenges of COVID, it seems especially needed this year. Every year we take time to remember the sacrifice of our military veterans by sponsoring and laying wreaths with Wreaths Across America. The ceremony is always emotional, and it is important to us to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
Mom’s Baking
My mom does so much Christmas baking, I like to carry on the tradition. We make batches of yummy goodies that I will share in our December Food & Drink Newsletter (sign up at https://themaverickobserver.com/). In our family, we make Overnight Blueberry French Toast on Christmas morning. I do all the work the night before so I can pop it in the oven and spend more time with my family opening gifts and watching Christmas movies.
Combining German Traditions with Creative Pastimes
Every October, the Fort Carson commissary gets hundreds of Lebkuchen-Schmidt Gingerbread tins. The tins always feature a historic building from my hometown in Nuremberg, Germany and pounds of delicious cookies. It is the start of Christmas celebration for my family. Once we open the tin, my creativity starts flowing and ideas for my next advent calendar begins.
I grew up with advent calendars and every year I create a new one, filling it with chocolates, gift cards and money. No matter your age, opening the little box or envelope always brings so much joy and surprise.
Gnomes and Elves Everywhere!
My sister loves gnomes and I try to make her a new one every year. They are always different from the year before and I include a story about my creation and why I made it for her. She has a whole collection of them and enjoys adding a new one.
Then there is the food! Texas Trash is part of every Christmas celebration. The first time I read the recipe from my husband’s mom, it asked for four pounds of oleo! What is oleo? I quickly found out I could substitute butter and we were off to the races! Every year we make a batch and munch on it almost to Christmas. We have not made it to New Year’s yet!
Santa on the Loose – HO, HO, HO!
My fondest and strongest memories of Christmas were when I was in elementary school. My cousins from both sides of the family would come to our home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As Christmas Eve meals would wind down, my cousins, my brother and I would make sure we had the “goodies” for Santa and his reindeer ready. We would all retire to the basement, sleeping bags laid out in front of the fireplace and try to subdue the excitement of Santa’s arrival.
My great uncle and aunt would don “authentic” Santa gear and drive over to our house in the wee hours of the morning. My uncle would come barreling in the room, bells ringing and loudly laughing his best “HO, HO, HO,” waking us all from our slumber. He would stay a few minutes to hand out our stockings full of goodies with help from Mrs. Claus. He would then direct us to stand and look out the window (opposite side of the house of the front door) to see him fly away with his reindeer. The nine of us would press our little faces to the window, awaiting the spectacle of flying reindeer. Every year one of us always stated that we saw him flying away.
I was fortunate enough to have my great uncle and aunt recreate this memory for my children when they were young. It still brings a huge smile and warm feeling to remember the awe and excitement in my children’s faces on Christmas morning being awakened by Santa himself. They, too, would press their faces to the windowpane looking for Santa and his reindeers’ departure from our roof.
Crab Legs or Chili “Mac” on Christmas Eve
We have one of two things on Christmas Eve menu. We either have crab legs, baked potatoes and cheesy garlic biscuits or we have my husband’s chili “mac” with crackers and peanut butter. This is a very casual meal and usually followed with several rounds of family games.
On Christmas Day, we always have a breakfast casserole before opening gifts. After gifts are opened, the prime rib, which my husband labors over for days, is put in the oven. He always makes sure we have a large enough roast to have leftovers for “grazing” later that evening. He is very proud and territorial of his prime rib and basks in all our compliments.
Amish noodles are always found on our Christmas dinner table as well as seven-layer salad, green bean casserole, and yeast rolls.
Christmas From My Youth
I have two varied memories of Christmas from my youth. One has to do with presents under the tree and the other with the annual food served at breakfast, lunch and dinner every year when we lived in Colorado Springs.
We had the same Christmas food for the three meals on Christmas Day for as long as I can remember. Breakfast was great! We had stollen from the bakery on Pikes Peak Avenue. Stollen is a German fruit bread with nuts, spices and dried or candied fruit with powdered sugar on it. Mom would slice it, butter it, then put it on a cookie sheet in the oven under the broiler.
Along with the stollen we would have a half of grapefruit with brown sugar and a half shot of sherry on it. They were both warm and yummy and I remember them fondly. The only trouble is we had to have breakfast BEFORE we could open the presents under the Christmas tree.
We could not see the tree when we came downstairs because all the doors to the living room were closed. We had to sit at the kitchen table until mom and dad finished their Christmas breakfast. It seemed like forever.
Lunch was smoked Finnan Haddie (haddock). Supposedly an English treat. I did not like it, but we had to clear our plates back then. I always asked for the smallest portion. Lunch lasted a long, long time.
Mom cooked a ham for dinner. We were all full of holiday goodies, but ham was a welcome sight at dinner. We had all sorts of fixings like sweet potatoes and some green vegetable probably green beans. I was only interested in the ham, however.
Christmas Trouble!
The second memory is one I got in trouble for. We usually had the Christmas tree up around Thanksgiving. We started putting presents under it right away. Mom and dad had a cocktail in the living room before dinner regularly back then.
While they were enjoying their evening cocktail, I would lie under the tree counting presents. One year I figured out if I hid in the corner behind the tree, I could unwrap the presents with my name on them and get a glimpse of what was inside the Christmas wrapping.
By the time Christmas day came I knew everything I was getting except for the few treasures in my stocking. But I blew it! I got a present I did not ask for. It was a small gasoline powered glider with a delta wing. When I started to open the present, I said I did not ask for it before I unwrapped it. Oops! My parents noticed my slip of the tongue. The jig was up. I was in trouble. I have not peeked since that Christmas day!
Why Say No?
When my daughters were young enough to still believe in Santa Claus, my younger daughter wandered into my room around 2 a.m. asking if we could see if Santa came. (He had.) On the way down, she grabbed her sister to come see too.
Once there, she was so excited to see the stockings filled and new presents under the tree. She asked, “Can we open them?” We always opened our presents on Christmas morning before we saw the rest of our family, so there was nothing keeping me from saying, “Sure!”
We stayed up for another 30 minutes opening our presents before going back to bed. The next morning, we all got to sleep!
Since that day over a decade ago, the tradition of middle-of-the-night gift opening has stuck.
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