Bring Back Big Families

Today was the big day for us, our Christmas celebration. As we do every year, we marked today on the calendar as our day to share our gifts, a big meal, and our time together as our big gift to each other.

I’ll walk you through each part of our day, one by one, as they happened, so you can see how our family shares this big day together.

Presents

It was around 7:20 when the first knock on our bedroom door came. 7:20 is actually pretty good around our house, as it’s usually closer to 6:20.

Then came 7:21. Another knock.

7:22. Another knock.

I answered each time, but no one was there.

7:23. The loudest knock of them all.

“Daddy, can we open our presents before breakfast?”

Sadly, that was a no. I had to get some bloodwork down first for an appointment next week, so that had to be done first. Then some odds and ends had to be picked up for my side of the family’s Christmas tomorrow, and then presents.

With six, presents are never a simple proposition. My wife and I split buying the bigger gifts for each kid (thanks to some free Amazon gift cards) and the wrapping whenever we could. Our little operation rivaled the efficiency of the North Pole itself.

Only the North Pole wouldn’t have forgotten a book for one. Or almost forget the other’s book under the baby’s chair.

Insert double face palms here.

Still, after all the gifts were sorted, everyone relaxed in and opened one gift at a time, from youngest to oldest, as we do every year.

And they all enjoy it so much. Our gifts are never big (we buy each other one little thing from Dollar Tree). The living room was covered in Pop Tart scented chap sticks and Matchbox cars and little Lego sets and books, and every single one was loved as much as the next.

As Garfield said, “It’s not about the giving. It’s not about the getting. It’s about the loving. There. I said it.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Lunch

Another part of our Christmas tradition is a big lunch. This year, my wife suggested something besides the traditions turkey or ham: she wanted tacos.

And tacos she got. 🌮

Crispy and soft, cheese, sour cream, salsa, queso, chips, rice, we had it all. And it was delicious. My wife even suggested we start a new food tradition of a Christmas around the world theme. Being from Texas, Mexican food was the obvious choice to start that new tradition. Maybe Italian next year. Or Chinese. Or maybe even a traditions Czech Christmas dinner (time to research that!). But a new tradition was born just today. And I couldn’t be more excited!

(Tradition side note: our kids usually do not drink caffeinated sodas [the last thing they need is caffeine]. But once a year, ever since last year anyway, they get an ice cold Coca Cola in a glass bottle to enjoy with their Christmas lunch. Since Walmart was out of the normal glass bottles of Coke, I had to substitute them for Mexican Cokes. Some things are just meant to be, like Mexican Coca Cola and tacos for Christmas.)

A Christmas Story

No Christmas is complete without one of my favorite movies. A Christmas Story is just classic Christmas. I love every part of it, from the Red Ryder to the Christmas tree bit (my favorite part) to the soap in the mouth for saying the “F-dash-dash-dash word” to the major award to the Chinese food Christmas dinner. It’s possibly the perfect Christmas movie.

And each year, I find myself turning more and more into the old man. And I think I’m okay with that.

Just need a nice leg lamp for the front window!

Gingerbread House

As the movie continued playing, we moved on to our little gingerbread house. I personally love gingerbread houses. We usually get one from someone for Christmas, but no such luck this year. So I bought a small one for us to make after our lunch. The kids enjoyed helping with it, but I think I enjoyed it more than they did!

It was small, but I think it was beautiful. And some of the kids enjoyed eating it (my nine-year-old loves gingerbread, so he was in hog heaven), though they said the icing left a little to be desired.

Still, it scratched their old man’s gingerbread house itch.

Sugar Cookies

I’ve talked about my favorite family traditions in a recent post, but there’s one tradition from my childhood that I really wanted to resurrect this year with my own kids. We’ve done it in the past, but it’s never been a big thing and it’s never become a “tradition” like some of the others.

But I wanted that to change. So we did them this year. We have some IKEA cookie cutters I bought several years back to start this tradition, and I think we’ve used them once before, but I knew this year I had to make a concerted effort to just do them.

So after lunch and the gingerbread house, we made sugar cookies. Everyone got to cut out the ones they wanted. And everyone loved it.

They looked beautiful before and after baking.

Reindeer Food

Our last activity for our celebration was our annual reindeer food workshop. The reindeer food is simple enough, made with oats, rice crispies, and whatever Christmas sprinkles you have on hand. The kids love making it each year, especially the mixing which involves a whole lot of shaking going on, and sprinkling it around the yard on Christmas Eve night so the reindeer have something to snack on while they wait for Santa to deliver the toys.

It’s another simple annual tradition, one that costs very little but brings a lot of joy.

Nap Time

After we had cleaned everything up, as the kids were still playing with their toys or making up some silly hand clapping routines before nap time, I told my wife how happy making the sugar cookies made me and how it reminded me of my own childhood. I can still see the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cookies cutters we had with the reindeer and Christmas tree and candy canes. Plastic, metal, some plain, some with designs stamped in them, it is something I can still picture as fresh in my mind as the cookies that had just come out of the oven. It was Christmas for me in a lot of ways. The fact that I still remember shows how important it was and is to me.

And that is my hope for my own kids. I hope they one day look back with their own families about the times we spent together exchanging little presents and eating Christmas foods from around the world and building gingerbread houses while watching A Christmas Story and, maybe most importantly to me, cutting our sugar cookies as a family.

I think that’s what Christmas traditions are all about. Call it nostalgia, call it old fashioned, call it whatever you want.

That’s what our Christmas is to me.

Now, go make your own traditions with your own families.