Traditions

By Kimberly Hicken

The Notebook

            I’m sound asleep, but the soft tiptoe on the carpet wakes me. I lean up on my right elbow and say, “I caught you!” The guilty child moans in disappointment and puts the notebook back on the foot of my bed before silently leaving my room. I glance over at the clock. It’s 1:30 am. A feeling of satisfaction flows over me as I snuggle back into the blankets and go back to sleep.

            This was a common scene of one of my children’s favorite traditions called “The Notebook.” Each December about 2 weeks before Christmas, I would go to a dollar store and purchase cheap prizes. I tried to get a variety of things including little toys, body wash, notebooks, colored pencils, crayons, and snacks. Each night I would put a notebook on the foot of my bed before I went to sleep. The notebook would have the date written at the top of the page. After I was asleep, my children would try to sneak into the bedroom and sign their names on the notebook without waking me up. When I woke up the next morning, I would check for signatures. Anyone who succeeded in signing the notebook got to pick a prize out of the prize box. This was by far one of my children’s favorite traditions. It wasn’t the prize so much as being able to sneak in and out of my room without waking me that appealed to them. Sometimes they were successful, but most of the time they were not. The most memorable time of success was when I went to bed late and thoroughly exhausted. A couple of my children had friends over spending the night. When I woke up the next morning, not only had all of my kids signed the notebook, but the friends had as well. Their celebrations that morning were nothing short of triumphant.

Gingerbread Houses

            When I was about ten, my mom went to a craft thingy with some friends. When she returned she had a gingerbread house that she had made. It was large house made from real homemade gingerbread and decorated with all sorts of candies. It had a little snowman in the front yard and tiny sleigh with reindeer on the roof. The snowman and sleigh were the only parts of the house that weren’t edible. I admired that house for several days until finally the temptation was too much for me and I stole one little piece of candy. That missing piece of candy wasn’t noticeable, and my mom never said anything, so I stole another and another. Eventually, it was fairly obvious that someone was taking pieces of candy, but my mom still didn’t say anything. One afternoon when no one was looking, I broke off a tiny piece of gingerbread from the roof. It was delicious! To this day, gingerbread is one of my favorite treats. I am always in search of the perfect gingerbread recipe. Eventually, the house disappeared completely…right into my stomach. I felt a little bit of guilt over eating my mom’s gingerbread house, but she never said anything to me about it. Now as an adult, I realize that she meant for the house to be eaten. You can’t save gingerbread like you can other types of Christmas decorations.

            This memory was the inspiration for a different type of tradition that I started with my own kids. At Christmas, I would make each member of the family their own gingerbread house to decorate. Everyone was given a bowl of frosting and they would dip their candies in the frosting and decorate the house. After the houses were decorated, we would take pictures of everyone standing next to their house. Then the houses were placed on the kitchen counter to admire. Each person could eat their own house and candy whenever they wanted. Some of my kids would try to make a beautiful house, not caring if the candy was something they wanted to eat. Others (myself included) would only use candy that they enjoyed eating. One of my fondest and funniest memories is when one of my older sons was about four years old. He didn’t bother to decorate his house at all. He just put a few globs of frosting on the house. I felt bad that he didn’t want to decorate it; I thought he didn’t enjoy the activity. Later I discovered how wrong I was! He had filled his house completely with all of his favorite candies by shoving them through the door of the house. After he removed the roof of his house, he had a houseful of candy. I realized how clever he was!

Gingerbread Cookies

            Some years, I just didn’t have the time or the energy to make a gingerbread house for each member of the family. With eight children, making gingerbread houses was a lot of work and very time-consuming. We didn’t do houses out of graham crackers because that just wasn’t the same. We like real gingerbread. On those years when I just couldn’t do the houses, I would make gingerbread cookies. I found a recipe that called for the dough to be refrigerated overnight. The next day when I took out the dough, it was the consistency of playdough. Each child had fun playing with the gingerbread, rolling it out into shapes with their hands and then baking it. We had the traditional gingerbread men, of course, but we also had gingerbread letters, trees, puppies, and even the occasional gingerbread snake.

Christmas Eve

            I heard stories from other parents of their children waking them up at three in the morning to open presents. That wasn’t for me! I didn’t want to wake up at three in the morning and then have grumpy tired children to deal with all day. Christmas Eve had its own traditions, many of which were designed to keep the kids up late so they would sleep in on Christmas Day. We would generally have a large Christmas Eve dinner. This dinner became the basis of leftovers for the next day so that I wouldn’t have to cook. Following dinner, we would often play board games or decorate our gingerbread houses or make cookies. I chose activities that kept the kids busy so they wouldn’t fall asleep too early. After the activities, we would settle in as a family and read the story of the First Christmas from Luke 2 in the New Testament. Following the reading, we would settle in and watch a Christmas movie complete with popcorn. The popcorn helped keep the children awake. When the movie was over, it was bedtime. I’m not kidding when I say that sometimes it would be close to midnight when the kids finally went to bed. I remember nights when the kids would be asking to go to bed! I realize this is a little bit non-traditional, but it worked for our family. Our kids always slept in on Christmas morning!

            After the kids were in bed and asleep, I would get out the presents and lay them under the tree. As my children got older, it became the tradition for the oldest child still living at home to help me lay out the presents. Only two of my eight children never got the opportunity to lay out presents. My oldest daughter never wanted to do it because she liked the magic of waking up Christmas morning to see the change that had taken place overnight. The other one is my youngest child. Since there isn’t anyone left to surprise, she never had this opportunity.

            After the presents were laid out, their dad and I would sneak into the kids’ bedrooms and hang candy canes around the rooms. When the kids would wake up in the morning, they would see the candy canes hanging around the room and know that Santa had come.

Christmas Day

            Christmas morning was a special time. I didn’t want my children to be caught up in the idea of presents and commercialism. I wanted them to enjoy Christmas, but I also wanted them to experience gratitude and express gratitude. Furthermore, I didn’t want to have grouchy kids throughout the day.

            We began our day by opening our stockings. Following the stockings, we sat down and ate breakfast together as a family. Sometimes, we would just have cereal which Santa had so thoughtfully provided. Other times, I would fix eggs or perhaps we would have a breakfast casserole that I had made ahead of time. Whatever we had, I tried to make sure that it was a healthy breakfast so that the kids wouldn’t fill up on Christmas candy.

            After breakfast, we opened presents. I didn’t allow the kids to tear into the presents with reckless abandon. We opened up gifts one by one, with each person taking a turn. This allowed the kids to really see who the different presents were from and to thank those individuals for their gifts and thoughtfulness. One year, I allowed them to talk me into letting everyone just open the gifts all at once. The magic was lost that year. The focus became on the loot, not on the true meaning of Christmas and the love of family. I vowed it would never happen again. Yes, sometimes it took us a couple of hours to open presents, but did that really matter? Once the presents are opened, there is always that letdown. By taking our time, I felt the kids really appreciated their gifts and each other. There was a lot of joking around, talking, and love. It was a moment to be treasured.

Simpler Traditions

            Not all of our traditions were big. We had lots of small, simple traditions. We would bake cookies and leave them on people’s doorsteps. We would drive around and look at Christmas lights. One year, we went Christmas caroling.

            We had, and still have, favorite Christmas movies that we watch as a family. During Christmas, we tend to quote lines from our favorite movies. We also have lots of Christmas stories that we still read. Even the teenagers would enjoy hearing some of the favorite Christmas stories such as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and other story books, some of which I grew up with.

            These are the traditions I had in my family as my children grew up. The thing I discovered from traditions is that it made the family draw closer. It built friendships between the children. I centered this article around Christmas because this is the holiday my family celebrates and because it is the Christmas season, but really, the main point of this article is that we should all have traditions. They don’t necessarily need to be holiday-based either, although many traditions seem to center around holidays. Whatever time of year it is, build traditions with your family. Whether it’s going swimming on the first day of summer, making cookies on the first day of school, or building a snowman with the first snowfall, make traditions. These traditions will help provide a strong framework and foundation for close family ties.