So lovely reader Sal has inspired me again. No, that’s not true. It’s more than inspiration — she’s written this whole post, really.
Our Christmas Question of the Day 10 is completely hers, but I think it’s a good’un, so here it is:
Okay – I’ve got a holiday question to ask, if Tracey will permit (I WILL!, ed.):
What is one thing that your family, either present or of origin, does that you’ve never heard of any other family doing?
For example: my husband’s family would give gifts ostensibly from someone outside the family, so that it wasn’t all from “Mom and Dadâ€. These could include practically anyone – fictional characters, historical figures, present day famous persons, deceased pets…
This could have a hint as to what the present was or not: a Cowboys jersey might come from “Tom Landryâ€. Or like this year, when middle daughter is getting “The Chronicles of Narnia†from “The Inklingsâ€. I’ve gotten a lot of cookware from “Julia Child†over the years.
So, what’s your unique holiday habit?
Okay. (This is me, Tracey.) First, Sal, I love that tradition. That’s definitely stealable. (Stealable?) 😉
My answer — a couple things, really. When we were little, my parents would hustle us off to bed on Christmas Eve and then wake us up just after midnight. They’d come into our rooms once we were finally dead asleep and whisper excitedly, “Wake up! Wake up! Santa’s come!” We’d groggily rouse ourselves and Dad would take the picture of us waking up. THOSE are some classic pictures. My favorite is one where I’m 8 years old and I’m pulling the covers back to get out of bed and my nightgown is basically twisted up around my neck and I have no idea because I’m not really awake. I am smiling, though, and providing a nice shot of little girl undies.
We just loved this tradition. My parents always played it as if Santa had just been there, as if we could still hear “reindeer paws” if we listened closely enough. It was always a thrilling sensation, as if we were getting away with something, being up in the dead of night like that, opening gifts under the glowing tree. It was magical. Even when we were older and in high school, we begged our parents to do it still. And they did.
(Plus, we slept in later on Christmas morning, so there was method to my parents’ madness.)
Another thing they did — my dad would devise codes for the “To” part of the packages, a different code for each child. But we had to crack the code in order to figure out which presents were ours. Kept us from shaking packages, which I know drove him crazy.
One year the 3 of us were in an absolute panic because Christmas Eve was 2 days away and we hadn’t cracked the code. He took pity on us and finally gave us a hint — which he usually didn’t do. He was playfully ruthless about the Christmas Codes and expected us to figure them out.
We finally figured that one out — at the last second. That was a great tradition, too. We had to work together, so it kept us from fighting. We didn’t know which ones were ours right away, so it kept us from shaking ’em.
Way to go, Dad!
Tracy, I love the tradition of waking the kids up after midnight! So much so, in fact, that I just called my husband and worked and suggested we give it a try too. Normally we get the kids to sleep late because they are so excited, and then we stay up longer setting everything up. My husband and I finally get to bed around 1 am, and then around 4 in the morning we hear rustling around out in the living room because the little buggers woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. All that means no sleep for Mom and Dad. We’ll see if your way works out any better for us. 🙂
I don’t know if we are the onliest ones, but it’s always been our tradition to stay up super late on Christmas eve, with all our snacks laid out to munch on and watch our favorite Christmas movies: Scrooge, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story…How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original, of course!), etc. Each year, we try to add a new one to our collection, this year it was A Charlie Brown Christmas. The kids look forward to this, and love helping with the cooking and baking that is involved in pulling it off.
Jennifer — That’s great! Lemme know how it works out.
Lyn — I love that one, too! I’m coming over. 😉
This isn’t a Christmas tradition, but Thanksgiving falls under “holiday,” right?
Every Thanksgiving, my mom cuts feathers out of construction paper, and on these feathers, each person must write a list or draw pictures of what they are thankful for. (I think the drawing began at the time when I was too young to write small enough.) We share the drawings and lists with each other, then play pin-the-tail-on-the-turkey. The best part is that the tail-less turkey poster (the one currently in use is one I drew at age 9) is usually stuck to a closet door. My brother, sister, and I delight in quietly opening said door after one of the others is blindfolded, so that the victim ends up stumbling into the closet in quest of the turkey’s tail. We’ve pulled this prank on each other for the last 18 years or so, and it just never gets old.
Barbara — That’s a fun one! I’d like to see that.
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I posted a little something about this tradition on my blog. (How was YOUR Christmas?) It went great; I think we’ll do it again next year.