Holiday traditions

I've started a weekly newsletter for the clinic where I work. For next week, I've asked my coworkers to submit some of their favorite holiday memories or traditions. This got me to thinking about the things we used to do growing up.

I remember when we were younger, all our aunts, uncles and cousins would gather on Christmas Eve at my mother's parents house. There we would open presents from them. I don't remember if we ate there too. I was pretty small. So, I mostly remember the presents. Knowing Grandma, I'm sure there was good food there too. After that, we would go home and Santa would have come while we were gone, so we would open presents from "Santa" at home on Christmas Eve.

As we got older and my younger brother and sister came along, that tradition changed. Then we as a family would go to Mass on Christmas Eve. While we all loaded in the car to go, mom would mysteriously always seem to take a long time finishing getting ready and take long time coming out to the car. Again, when we returned home, we would find that Santa had been there. Then, opened presents on Christmas Eve. This left Christmas day for visiting relatives or having them to our house for dinner.

I'm sure there were other things that my siblings can remember, but these are the ones that stand out most in my mind. Oh, and I used to love singing Christmas carols on the way to Mass when we were older, too.

I hope my own kids don't mind that we don't have traditional things that we do each year. At least we still get together with family and friends and do fun things. And, I still get to sing Christmas carols. Tomorrow night, for the second year in a row, Brian and I will be going caroling with our church choir. After that, we will head to our neighbor's for fellowship and snacks.

At least I hope we still can go. We are getting a bunch of snow and it is supposed to keep snowing for the next few days. My brother was kind enough plow our drive. I'm sure he will be back again soon as it keeps piling up.