My family is big on tradition and even bigger on holidays. Sometimes they tell stories of their Christmas mornings and what they used to do when all the family got together during the season. My mom, for example, lived closer to Antarctica, so she celebrated Christmas and New Years with fireworks and barbecues and gatherings in the backyard or the neighborly streets. In New York, we have snow and chilly nights, so fireworks won't really work out in this case. Instead, we have hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies, and movies.

Over the years, we've accommodated old family traditions to our liking, not shifting too much in the process. Since we're Italian and Hispanic, dinner is around 8PM and typically lasts two hours. Then, we get dressed for the midnight mass, after which we open the presents. We didn't used to wait until the morning, and that's a tradition that was carried over. Recently, getting to mass has become harder because we haven't all been in one place, so we decided that if we couldn't get to midnight mass, then we would bring about a new tradition.

And so far so good, I might add. We have dinner and then get in our pjs to watch The Polar Express while stuffing our faces with Christmas decorated cookies and hot cocoa with mini marshmallows. We end up falling asleep on the couch one by one, and then in the morning, we open the presents and have a nice family breakfast, after which we go to mass.

Whether or not we have people over, usually more extended family, we don't change our traditions too much. We accommodate them every year. If we're hosting that year, we may delay the mass until the evening. Dinner can be later, if it needs to be, but lasts just as long. Presents are opened at midnight. And then everyone sits around the table to eat breakfast in the morning, even if we all have to squeeze together.

Traditions are important because you create something for your future family members to follow. They may change them, like we did, but sometimes we remember how we used to spend Christmas in the warm weather and we decide to escape to Florida one year to be with other family. Or we stay and bury ourselves underneath the snowfall. We're keeping the spirit of the holiday season alive by celebrating the traditions that our ancestors started as a way to make the celebration special.

And we plan to continue on for as long as we can! Happy Holidays!