Christmas Traditions Enjoying the

   It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: trees are being trimmed, Christmas carols are being crooned, and memories are being made. It’s a time of traditions, of making them and keeping them. We asked some of our staff to share some of their favorite Christmas traditions. We hope you enjoy reading them and have a wonderful season filled with your own special traditions. My family has a tradition that started when I was very small called The Bard Party. A bard, many hundreds of years ago, was one who traveled around reciting poetry, songs, and stories. Before Christmas comes, we all gather together. We converse and then sing carols. We then welcome â€Å"the spirit of the bard† with an opening toast and brass bells ringing to quiet the crowd as someone begins sharing. It could be a poem, a song, a story, or even a lullaby. It is such a blessing to watch the wee ones in our family grow into the traditions we’ve begun! —Lucy Shopen My family always had oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and we ate it right after a special candlelight communion service at our church. Ironically, my wife also partook of oyster stew on Christmas Eve with her family! It appears we were divinely destined for one another. —Nathan King The past few years we’ve built our Nativity scene one piece at a time leading up to Christmas as well as lighting the Advent wreath each evening. But this year, with our oldest being 2 ½, we’re working on establishing some new Christmas traditions, especially doing the Jesse Tree devotion during Advent and then continuing with ornaments for each part of the Christmas story in the twelve days after Christmas. —Genevieve Priest Having a Guatemalan mother, I have always had the opportunity to eat a diverse assortment of food. At Christmas time, my mother makes her special tamales. Before she cooks and wraps the tamales, Mom makes two fifteen-gallon pots of masa. I help her to stir the thick, heavy masa as it cooks over the fire pit in the cold December air. Early the next morning, we drag our feet downstairs to the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee, and then start packing the tamales by wrapping the masa, meat, and sauce into a banana leaf covered in foil. It takes hours! Then the tamales go back to the fire pit to cook the meat. Once they’re done, we put them in bags to be given as gifts to families in our community. Yum! —Nick Buscemi When it’s time to bring out the Christmas decorations, we always have one box that’s heavier than the rest—our Christmas books. It began with one book, given to me when I was eleven—Take Joy by Tasha Tudor. Now that my husband and I have children, we have added a book to our collection yearly. Some can be read in a single sitting, like An Early American Christmas by Tomie dePaola, while others span all of Advent, such as Arnold Ytreeide’s series that begins with Jotham’s Journey. My girls gravitate toward Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden. We share a Michigan connection to An Orange for Frankie and A Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Pollaco. Christmas stories draw us together each year. —Danielle Olander During the weeks leading up to Christmas, my wife and I encourage our children to remember Christ’s message to love one another. When we see them do something exceptionally selfless or sacrificial, we give them a golden straw to place in a doll-sized manger to help â€Å"prepare the way.† Gradually the bed grows comfier and cozier as straw after straw is placed. On Christmas morning, we gather as a family to place the infant Jesus statue on His special bed and sing â€Å"O Come, All Ye Faithful.† Prominently placed under the tree, the resting infant reminds us all of what is truly important in life. —Evan Smith I grew up in upstate New York in the 1960s where our Christmases were almost always white. In those days, decorations were a bit simpler. Most families would wind a few colorful strings of lights around their shrubbery, put plastic candles in their windows, or hang a simple wreath on their front door. Our family’s was to hang a giant wreath on the front door of our Cape Cod style house. My father, an industrial engineer whose specialty was efficiency and quality control, would craft that year’s wreath out of evergreen boughs he’d trimmed from the yard and adorn it with a huge red bow. The Christmas season could not begin until it was in place. —Jean Nichols Momma’s Nativity figures rested on fluffy cotton on top of our piano. Moving wise men from the mantel to the piano a little each week, my sisters and I grew the scene and our own suspense. The shepherd boy with a lamb wrapped around his shoulders cheerfully smiled like Grammy’s Hummel figurine, but it was the little wooden manger bed for Jesus that took my focus and my heart. It was empty. Momma told us that if we did a good deed for someone—something unasked for—we could take a piece of straw from the animal trough and put it in Jesus’ crib to make it softer for him when he came. As a child I determined to move as much straw as possible from the trough to the crib! Thanks to Momma’s Nativity, I learned that December’s daily kindnesses can still make someone’s bed a little softer at night. —Cathy Flowers Christmas Eve Midnight Mass has always held a special meaning to me. Walking in from the brisk, starry night to the dimly lit church where the Gloria is joyfully chanted and bells ring and echo through the air, I can’t help but feel truly at peace and thankful for the birth of Christ. Afterwards, â€Å"Merry Christmas!† is uttered by all standing in the frigid air outside. Quick present exchanges are done between friends, but then we jump into our cars and journey back to our homes, arriving around 2 A.M. While some families can’t wait until the sun peers over the horizon to tear open the presents, my family prefers the method of â€Å"Sleep first. Open presents later.† —Michelle Robinson While we didn’t decorate or set up the tree until Christmas Eve, my mom would slowly add a picture, candle, or small decoration here and there throughout Advent, which served to add to the great feeling of anticipation. The week leading up to the 25th started the â€Å"O Antiphons,† an age-old tradition of anticipating the coming of the Christ child by singing or reciting short verses that bring out his qualities. On Christmas Eve, we would head to the Christmas tree farm to select the perfect tree, strap it to a vehicle roof, and gleefully bear it home. That night we would decorate and bake. The house was ready, the food underway; we were prepared to welcome the little babe at Midnight Mass. —Kristin Boutross We hope you enjoyed reading about these traditions. As you move through the season, we wish you joy and peace as you encounter your own special Christmas traditions. It truly is â€Å"the most wonderful time of the year!†