Plot Monkeys

Do you and your family have special traditions for the holidays (primarily Christmas or any holiday in December)?

JD: For us, it’s just all about spending it with family. That’s our tradition, and it’s pretty simple. When I first met my husband, he and his family celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, which we still do. This is nice because it leaves Christmas day open for my family, and we don’t feel like there is a “tug-of-war” issue of who to spend Christmas day with. We know that we’ll be at his family’s on Christmas Eve, and after we open our presents on Christmas morning, we spend the afternoon with my family. It’s a nice balance and has saved us from feeling “split in two”, so to speak! I think when my own girls are married we’ll do the same thing — celebrate with them on Christmas Eve, and let them have Christmas day to spend with their husband’s family.

CP: Hmmm … We always say the blessings and light the Menorah before the kids get their gifts. Of course this is supposed to ensure that they appreciate the holiday traditions and reasons behind the holiday but you know the truth. They’re kids and they want to rush through the candles and get to the presents! Still I know that when they get older, the fact that we kept this tradition will push them to keep it with their families too. I also put an electric Menorah in a window in the front of the house and we light it at night, one more bulb each night, just like the Menorah with the wax candles in the kitchen.

LK: I remember so strongly growing up with very special traditions unique to my family, so when my girls were born, I wanted to do the same thing for them. So to this day, as soon as Santa Claus marches by in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, my hubby puts on the same Christmas CD. We are NOT allowed to have ANY evidence of Christmas in the house before that moment–no movies, no music, no decorations. (Of course, I’ve been shopping & stashing gifts away for 11 1/2 months!) Thanksgiving night we typically watch a Christmas movie–quite often The Muppet Christmas Carol. We all watch our entire collection of Christmas movies over the next few weeks. The same ones–year after year. Then, on the day we decorate our Christmas tree, I make a big pot of my spaghetti sauce (this is a big deal, an all-day thing.) We all put everything on the tree, but there are certain “special” ornaments that have to be put on the tree by one person or another. And we all put our name ornaments on together.

After that day, I freeze the sauce, then thaw it out on Christmas Eve. I make a big tray of lasagna, so my Italian hubby gets a little taste of the food he grew up with during the holidays. That night, we all get in our jammies–quite often the girls’ would be new, and matching–and we sit around the tree for hubby to read The Night Before Christmas. Drinking hot cider (sometimes with the A.C. blasting in Florida, just so it would “feel” like Christmas…lol!) After that, we each get to open just one present. Then it’s cookies & milk & wine for Santa. (Hey, Santa likes coming to my house!) When they were little, the girls would go to bed and about five hours later they would finally fall asleep and we could bring in big haul from all the places in the house where I’d hidden it. Now that they’re older, the two teenagers love being “in on” the big bringing-out ceremony. They love finding out where I’ve had everything hidden throughout the holiday season and they inevitably sucker us into letting them open a Santa gift or two.

Boy, this is going on so long…sorry! To finish up–Christmas day is filled with presents and food and friends and family. Sometimes we go to relatives, or they come to our house. Some years it’s just been the five of us, which is every bit as special. Funny, we’ve got this new’ish tradition: for the past few years we’ve been watching Monty Python & the Holy Grail on Christmas night! The girls now expect it. Boy, I love the holidays!

JEL: I have so many Christmas traditions in my family, but my favorite is Christmas Eve. We celebrate Noche Buena (the Cuban Christmas Eve) with all the trimmings…roast pork, black beans and rice, platanos, the works. My aunt makes the most delicious deviled crabs in the universe and it’s a goal to see who can eat the most. Now keep in mind we have about 40 people for this event, so she makes hundreds of the suckers and they go fast. She can barely get them out of the deep fryer before people are picking them off, dousing them with hot sauce and inhaling what’s left. If someone is going to be late, others have been known to take a few and hide them for the late arriver…but sometimes, we forgot where we hid them. I remember the year my mother had a very funny smell coming from her cookbook cabinet…where she discovered moldy deviled crabs two months after Christmas Eve! (She rarely uses cookbooks!) We eat a lot, we laugh even more and at the end of the night, we sing happy birthday to my brother, who was a Christmas baby. And yes, we open presents. I’m the Christmas Elf, replete with hat…my father was always Santa, but after a surgery a few years ago, I took over and I’ve been doing it ever since. Good times, this! My favorite night of the year.