Christmas traditions vary from family to family and from regions afar. I've been pleased that my oldest son's wife AA loves to be with our family for Christmas, though I don't think we do anything out of the ordinary. It helps that DC has one brother and two sisters to liven up our home.
Since I finally decorated the Christmas tree and have started baking Christmas cookies, I am thinking of Christmas only being one week away.
Rather late into the morning, I am finally getting around to thinking of our family traditions.
1. Christmas Letter with cards:I love sending out our family's Christmas letter, because each member of our family writes his/her own part. Oddly, this tradition started 17 years ago, the first Christmas after my mother died. I could not write the letters I usually did for our new home in NJ, so I got each child and CB to write their little parts. Back then, the letter was one typed page, but in recent years it has extended to front and back of a sheet of paper.
It has always been our policy that each person writes whatever they want. In adolescent years, that was sometimes difficult to accept, but we did. In return, I can see that my children do not criticize my offerings of a religious vein, for which I am grateful.
I wish I had carefully saved each letter since 1992, along with the family picture taken, and archived them someplace. I never did and deeply regret that. With the busy-ness of four children and various moves, I never realized that this was a new
tradition in our family!
2. Christmas cookies:My mother and her family were famous for baking, especially of cookies. I usually overdo the baking of Christmas cookies, but am hoping I'll restrain myself somewhat by my commitment to health and Weight Watchers.
I inherited my mother's recipes and her love for cookbooks. Christmas cookies are made with butter and chocolate and other rich ingredients. The recipe I discovered last year is one I love, because marzipan and almond paste are Christmas treats for me (but not the males in my family, who don't like them). The recipe is for almond shortbread and is from the
Odense website. Here it is:
Almond Shortbread
Yield
One 9" x 13" tray of shortbread
Time
15 minutes to assemble.
25 minutes to bake.
Total Time: 40 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1-7 oz box Odense Almond Paste, grated 1 cup sugar 2 sticks salted butter, room temp. 2 egg yolks 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder
TOOLS & EQUIPMENT
Electric mixer
Baking dish, 9"x13" or similar
Wire rack, for cooling
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Grease the baking dish.
- Add grated Almond Paste, sugar and butter to a mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until combined. Increase speed to high and beat for three minutes, scraping down bottom and sides of bowl.
- Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well between each yolk. Beat on high speed for three minutes, until light in color and texture.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder. Add to batter. Mix on low speed, until just incorporated. Do not over-mix!
- Lightly press the dough into the greased baking dish, using a sheet of wax paper to help smooth the surface.
- Score the surface with a knife in the size squares that you wish. This makes for easier cutting later on.
- Bake 22-26 minutes or until lightly golden.
- Cool pan on wire rack. Don't cut until cool.
- Store in an airtight container.
My mother used to bring her own baked cinnamon rolls from Bellingham, WA to wherever we lived for Christmas morning. (She would also bring the pieces of gingerbread she made for the kids to build a
gingerbread house.)
When she died, I felt obligated to keep those food traditions going, though the gingerbread house does not always get baked. For the past 3-4 years, daughter MJ has made the cinnamon rolls and BJ cooks the scrambled eggs.
4. Nativities or creches:I collect nativities and have for years. Friends and family have given me unique ones from various places in the world, especially daughter AE from Germany. Last year I posted
pictures of some of them.
My first nativity set was given to me by my cousin Margaret (who I visited in Calgary) when I was a little girl. It is wooden and was made in France. Mary is holding baby Jesus.
I've always a "thing" about our images of the Nativity with Jesus stuck in the manger, which was "invented" by Saint Francis. Babies need to be held and fed by their mothers. Now I realize that my first creche showed this and maybe influenced me more than I ever imagined.
5. New tradition of stocking gifts for each other:We had a long tradition of Santa Claus visiting our children, with four children. When Santa finally stopped coming to our house, we began giving each other a small gift in stockings. CB and I even have stockings, because my friend JKJ (from high school!) gave us stockings she'd sewed in the 1970's, with our names on them. We never used them until this new tradition began and are so glad we have them now.
My mother made embroidered and needlepoint stockings for the children. She died before she could finish one for MJ. When MJ was a little girl, a sweet lady named Sara Beth from church made a beautiful needlepoint stocking for her. And Lands End "made" one for KA!
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As this year draws to its end,
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. 
