Christmas Traditions

Our tradition for the holiday season is to spend Thanksgiving with hubby's family and Christmas with mine. Every Christmas Eve, after church, a huge gang - aunts, uncles, cousins and their children, family friends - descends on my parents' home. Dad makes roast beef and lamb like my grandmother used to, Mom makes Indian sweets, and my sister and I chip in with cookies, dips, and appetizers. Despite the overflowing tables, our guests always bring something extra to add to the feast. What follows is a joyful chaos! People pouring drinks, carving the roasts, starting a fire and lighting candles, pulling food out of the warmer and putting more in the oven - all while catching up with each other and the kids laughing and running between our legs. The celebration lasts well into the early morning hours with everyone tired but still feeling good.

And what happens the next day? We do it again! On Christmas day we all meet at my aunt's home to celebrate with traditional Indian food for dinner, again going well into the next morning. A few days later, we go to my uncle's place for another dinner and more fun, and again to another aunt's to ring in the New Year. Recently, one of my cousins added his home to the rotation where just we cousins and our kids get together. Over the years things have changed. We've grown up, gotten married, had kids, moved away, moved back and started new careers, but we always meet. We've kept up these events for many years even through nasty weather and icy roads, home remodeling, far away travels, and illnesses.

As tired as we get during the week of celebrating we know we are inextricably joined together - not just by this tradition but by everything that came before it. Although our history is imperfect, the lessons we've learned have become our legacy. It's hard to imagine not continuing to share in the things that remind and continue to teach us our family story - how our grandparents celebrated Christmas during lean times, the decorating, cleaning, and sewing our parents and siblings did to get ready for the special day, the caroling, the cooking, the singing, playing with cousins, gifts given and received. And my generation has added our own elements, including the odd but fun and rousing rounds of poker!

We know that life is always changing and our holidays will not always be what we know now. What we do know is that whatever these days and nights end up looking like we hope to continue them through all of life's changes, always honoring the faith and love that keeps us close.