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I think I have a weird position among my extended family. I’m not bad enough to be a true black sheep, but I have not followed the path as usual, either. I’m 27, living not in too much sin, childless, and have never been in trouble worse than a speeding ticket. I did cuss out a cop once, but he really had it coming. I think the biggest misconceptions about me among my family are that I either am a stickler for tradition, or I completely buck it. I like to think I am actually a nice combination of both- I love tradition so much, I’d like to start a few of my own

In our house, the holidays were a mix of anticipation, sneaking, yelling, and a little bit of Mr. Clean. My brother and I, two years apart in age, discovered one year that the gifts our mom put under the tree weeks in advance could easily be snuck into without her knowledge. We got away with this for a few years, until we either bragged about it to our sister (who tattled), or mom discovered a slightly ripped corner or wrapping paper on one box. We were threatened with an end to all Christmas gifts (that we didn’t really believe), and we came to the conclusion that we really did like the surprise of the big morning, so we decided to knock it off. Besides, we always knew what we were getting each other- our dad would pick us up from school on the last day before holiday break, we’d go to Pizza Hut, then Wal Mart, armed with twenty bucks each. George and I would make a beeline for the music section, while Katie was escorted to the toys with our dad. We’d each pick out the cassette or cd we wanted, discuss, then go pick something for Katie.  And this was the truly fun part for me- my sister is seven years younger than me, so I would pick something we’d both like. She wound up with a nice selection of Polly Pockets this way.

The weeks of our break from school also involved our mom making us clean. She’ll deny it now (she swears we never did housework)  but I have the permanent dishpan hands to prove the contrary.  Once we moved to the house they currently live in, the cleaning became a mega event- my mom, tchotchke queen of the south, has more dust collectors than any one person should. We had to run the collectible dishes in the dishwasher, dust each little knick knack and tiny picture frame. This always seemed to take months, but it likely only took 12 hours. We’d shampoo carpet, move furniture, clean out nooks and crannies we didn’t know even existed, and at some point after dark, our mom would exclaim “well, I guess this is ok…this house @%$#^%$~^” It could never be clean enough. Of course, I think if she were in a white, padded, sterilized room all by herself, that wouldn’t be clean enough, either.  But the end of this day meant something we all enjoyed- putting up the tree.

Long ago (sometime in my third year I think), our parents decided that artificial was the way to go. So we always had a fake tree. And, sometime around my 16th or 17th year, our mom decided a 9 footer was the only one she’d want. Also, I decided to pack as many lights on it as I could, so I have been forever stuck with that task. This year, she’s getting a prelit tree, and I think those are the best invention since inventions were first invented. So we’d stay up, watching whichever holiday specials were on (I think the last one was the old “Frosty the Snowman” cartoon, one of my favorites), and we’d string lights, hook ornaments, and try not to pack the front of the tree with too many.

A couple of weeks would pass, we’d have our mom’s family’s party, usually around the 20th, and on the 23rd, my brother and I would find silly ways to celebrate our actual favorite holiday- Christmas Eve Eve. It mostly involved our hoping that the fireworks display at our Paw Paw’s would be even better than the year before’s, we’d walk around in the woods, and one year, it involved me and a few friends trying to climb a 20ft cement wall in a Bronco. Never again. I think the excitement of that day was that it meant Christmas Eve was still to come, and that the holiday season still held so much fun to be had. We could still watch our well worn VHS of Christmas cartoons that were only shown once during the 90’s, we could drink our fill of instant cocoa, and discuss what we thought we were getting.This day would pass, we’d spend Christmas Eve night at our grandparents’ (until 8 years ago, when our Paw Paw passed away, the holiday just isn’t the same without him around), and around 8 or 9, we’d go back home, and watch A Christmas Story, until our parents shooed us to bed.

Four a.m.  The footsteps began, creeping across the hall. My door opened, and a hissing “Chrisssty! Hey! Get up! It’s here!” Sometimes I’d bound out of bed, and we’d race down the hall. Others, I’d grumble about how early it was and roll over, which led to my covers being violently snatched away. Then I’d have to get up, and follow the bounding, Tigger-like brother to the living room, and watch as he inspected everything under the tree. One year, he thought the answer to his Christmas prayers had been answered- he wanted a four wheeler for as long as I can recall. And every year, he’d be so sure he was getting it, finally, and then, it never came. One year, our parents, holiday pranksters they are, decided to have fun with this. They typed a return label on the back of an index card, from the “Honda Corporation,” and taped it to a box the size of a small fruit crate. He saw this, and starting going “Honda?!? Honda!!!” Our dad, going unnoticed on the couch, ordered us back to bed. Around 6, he bounded back across the hall (as he also did every year), and we would each grab an afghan, and take our seats, me staring at the tree and lights, he salivating over “finally” getting his ATV. Sometime around 7, the rest of the family would wake, and we’d have to fix coffee for our mom, and then situate for the gift passing.

Now, as far as the four wheeler goes, Katie and I were in on the joke. We kept this secret for weeks, waiting for the day when we’d get to see his eyes bug out of his head, and then the confusion we all knew was coming. He was handed the box. He grinned, “These are my keys, right?” “Just open it,” our parents grinned back in unison, in a way that would give the Cheshire cat the creeps. He tore into it, careful not to rip the “Honda” address label. He took the lid off the box, and found inside…a pistol. No keys. Just  a Civil War-era powder pistol in a glass front case. “Where…where are my keys?!?” he wailed. “There are no keys! Hahahahahahaha!” We laughed at his disappointment, and he said “I can’t believe ya’ll would trick me!” He did like his gun though, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.

I miss these unspoken traditions with my family. The shopping after school and pizza, the trouble to be had on Christmas Eve Eve, and being rudely awoken every December 25th around 4am. Having Christmas Eve ON Christmas Eve, instead of the week before. Maybe it’s the loss of traditions we are so used to growing up that causes sadness during this time. I know as a kid, I would feel so sad late on Christmas day, because it was over for another year,  the tree, the lights, the food, the anticipation. My brother would go back to being that lunk across the hall who hogged the tv and couldn’t manage to get up at 6 for school. Our house would go back to being a bland mess. There were no more fireworks. No more days off of school. No more hiding our mom’s Aaron Neville tape or cd. And maybe too, this is why it’s considered a child’s holiday. I think adults like seeing happy, sugar fueled children behaving for a few weeks, hoping for the perfect gift. Or threatening them with a call to Santa when they misbehave.  I also think my sadness comes from realizing that we’ll never have Christmases exactly like those we used to again. Maybe it’s another reason people have kids, to hold on to that in any way they can. Since I have only cats, I will tell my nephew about how George used to wake me up so early, how we’d sneak down the hall to inspect the goods, and be ordered back to bed for a couple more hours. I only hope he’s as excited on that morning as we always were, and that when his sister is old enough, he’ll bound across the hall at 4am, so they can race to the tree and help the day last that much longer. I think that’s a tradition worth keeping