Merry
Christmas Eve, everyone! And welcome to
the final day of the 12 Days of Patmas, 2012!
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have! Today I wanted to get a little personal. Since its Christmas Eve and all, I figured I
should talk about some of my favorite holiday traditions. These are all personal traditions…things I’ve
grown up with; things I’ve started doing on my own…things that no Christmas season
feels complete without!
First, the
Christmas season officially begins, for me, upon returning home from
Thanksgiving in Lancaster. That Sunday
of Thanksgiving weekend, I always come home, throw on some football, and
decorate my bedroom for Christmas. I do
it every year. The lights go up, my baby
tree finds a home…sometimes the bell ringing guys get a home and the lighted
figurines go up as well (although not this year…no room). In any case, my room becomes a veritable
Christmas wonderland! Christmas does not
begin until the lights are up in my room!
Next, that
evening, I will watch my first Christmas movie of the season…and every year, I
start with one of my favorites…Christmas Vacation! It’s hilarious! It is always the first Christmas movie I
watch, and I usually do so that Sunday night, while sitting in my newly
decorated room!
Finally, one
last thing that I do is pull out my Christmas music mix CD and throw it on in
the car. For the most part I can’t stand
Christmas music. But, Trans-Siberian
Orchestra does some legit hard rock versions of the classics. So, my mix CD has plenty of TSO, mixed in
with some other Christmas songs that don’t give me the dry heaves. I’ll play that one CD on loop in my car for
the month of Christmas, and then it goes away for another year. Which is fine, I’ve usually rather had my
fill of Trans-Siberian Orchestra by that point.
But for that month, my car is definitely rocking Christmas music…mostly
(sometimes its rocking 95.7 The Game).
Moving on
from the traditions surrounding my day to day life during the month of
December, the rest of my most cherished traditions surround my family and
friends.
The longest
standing tradition I have with someone outside of my immediate family is my
tradition of picking one day in December to go Christmas shopping with
Sean. Every year, we’d pick a Saturday,
and hit the malls to get all our shopping done!
While the malls are madness, Sean is one of my best friends, so any day
I get to spend with him is enjoyable. We’ve
done it pretty much every year since we turned 16 and got our licenses. Sadly, this year we did not get the
opportunity to do so again…times change, and people get busy…but hopefully we’ll
get back into it again next year, as it’s a tradition I truly enjoy!
One of my
favorite parts of Christmas when I was a kid was waking up in the morning, and
my sister and I would sit on the top of the stairs while my dad was downstairs
setting up the video camera. He would
give the OK, and we’d run downstairs and breakneck speeds to see what Santa had
brought us! That sense of anticipation,
the excitement of the Christmas about to unfold before us…it was incredible…and
definitely one of my favorite Christmas traditions as a child!
These days,
the waiting at the top of the stairs is long gone (heck, I sleep downstairs at
my parents’ house nowadays), but there’s still plenty of traditions at home
that I just cannot see Christmas being complete without. The penguin on the lawn as part of our house’s
Christmas decorations is one. That jolly
penguin, sitting there in all his penguin glory, welcoming me home…I love
it!
I love my
parents’ tradition of putting up two trees…one real tree in the family room,
and one fake tree in the living room.
Two trees! It’s awesome! You get the real tree smell, and the fake
tree reliability…it’s the best of both worlds!
I also love
my mom’s snickerdoodles. I’ve tried to
make my own…they just never turn out the same.
Whatever my mom does to make her snickerdoodles, they are freaking
incredible. I look forward to them every
single year!
Really,
being home for the holidays in general is among my favorite traditions there
is. The fire crackling in the fireplace,
while I sit there in my robe, next to the real tree, surrounded by Christmas lights,
a snowy Christmas village, and some very happy kitties, watching a Christmas
movie with my family…does it get any better than that? I think not…
Two
traditions that have become mainstays in my Christmas holiday has been
Christmas Eve with the Piccardos, and Christmas with my Grandma and Aunt in
Pebble Beach!
Christmas
Eve is very enjoyable. A few families
get together for dinner and general revelry at the Piccardos’ household! Sometimes it’s at Sue and Dave’s place,
although lately it’s been at Gina’s place up in the hills. Either way, its always a wonderful time, and
something I look forward to every single year.
Christmas is
always spent with my mom’s side of the family (we do Thanksgiving with my dad’s
side), so that means heading out to gorgeous Pebble Beach for the day! We open presents at home, have breakfast,
then drive to Pebble Beach, get there at noon for hors d'oeuvres and more
presents opening, and general family time!
Lately Pebble Beach has had just simply stunning weather on Christmas
Day…and my grandma’s house is up on the hill overlooking Carmel Bay and Point
Lobos, so warm, sunny days up there are rather pleasant. Definitely enjoy my Christmas Day tradition
of spending it with family in Pebble Beach!
Finally, no
list of traditions would be complete without my newest Christmas tradition…the
12 Days of Patmas! I love putting these together! I love writing them, I love researching them,
and I love sharing them with all of you!
Doing these posts, for the third year running now, has actually
rekindled my Christmas spirit! Maybe its
because it allows me to focus on the parts of Christmas I love while rallying
against the parts of Christmas that I dislike.
But its fun, and hopefully you guys find it enjoyable as well!
With that, I
close out the 2012 edition of the 12 Days of Patmas. I hope everyone here enjoys their respective
Christmas traditions over the next two days!
Have a magical Christmas Eve, and a spectacular Christmas Day! I hope Santa brings you everything you want
(unless you were naughty, in which case I hope he brought you coal…valuable,
reliable coal).
From my
family to yours…
Tune in
after Christmas for the 2012 Year in Review!
2 comments:
All very good! You sure did a lot of research for this, like the various Christmas traditions. I learned a lot! Thanks for sharing!!
Excellent read, as usual. The Christmas traditions from around the world was my favorite - great info, some of which I've since quoted! Merry Christmas!
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