Family traditions are what makes the Christmas Season. They are what make each and every family special and unique. Without them, every family’s Christmas would be the same and there wouldn’t be any exciting about them. Whether it be the foods that are made or the silly little things that everyone looks forward to, they are a very important part of Christmas.
My family has a crazy tradition/fascination with rolls. I don’t know how or when it started, but ever since I can remember we’ve been throwing rolls down the dinner table to commemorate the beginning of Christmas dinner. Somebody will pick up a dinner roll and toss it to somebody else at the other end of the table while yelling, “Roll!”. It sounds crazy and it is, but it is also something that I look forward to.
The kids have also taken to hiding rolls in different people presents for them to find. We also have glazed roll ornaments from different Christmas’. For instance, my parents have one from their first Christmas as a married couple that one of my aunts glazed and made for them as a present. It now proudly sits in the front of our Christmas tree each year.
Another weird tradition was started when my mom was a kid, and we carried it on until we lost the ornament. My mom had a pickle ornament from when she was younger and each year a different person would hide it in the tree. On Christmas morning whoever found the pickle first would get to open their presents first.
The kids in the family had started this tradition and for years it went on until we all stopped sleeping over everyone's houses on Christmas. The day after Christmas we would take our gift cards that we had received and go to Target with them. Our Aunt Beth would drive us and I remember just laughing and having so much fun getting to wander around the store and getting to pick something out to buy.
Our traditions also lie heavily with the food we make. My mom and I love to bake Christmas cookies so each year we make different kinds of cookies from pizzelles, to anise, to spritz butter cookies. I look forward to sitting with her in the kitchen while she presses out the cookies and I wait to decorate them. Being away at college this year makes me even more impatient to get home and start making cookies.
Traditions are something that is meant to keep going through the generations. You grow up participating in them and then eventually you look forward to them each year. WIthout these traditions it wouldn’t make my family unique. They’re what I talk about with my friends when we talk about how crazy our families are.
They make me love my family even more. These are the traditions I want to carry on with my own family someday because they are special to me. Each and everyone of us had a tradition that’s special to them, and hopefully you too will carry on these traditions this Christmas season.