Jan. 2: Tevye said (sang) (hollered?) it best

Over the past 15 years as a family of 3-4, we’ve created some traditions to help make our Christmas season special and memorable—that’s what traditions are for, right? The kids know they always get new PJs on Christmas Eve, which they open after we’ve finished our Chinese food dinner. Sometimes they get to open another gift, but we choose the gift because I am Controlling And Overbearing Mrs. Claus, or so they say. Actually, we wait to put most the gifts under the tree until the kids have gone to bed (they’re not Santa believers, we just like to see the looks on their faces when they come down on Christmas morning). They know they’re not allowed to start opening presents until Vic and I each have a cup of coffee in our hands. Depending on what other family members we’re with on Christmas, the rest of the day’s activities vary from year to year.

I cling to our long-standing traditions, but I like to try out new ones here and there too. In recent years, I’ve made a point to prepare an extra-yummy Christmas morning breakfast/brunch. We don’t always sit down together to eat, but when each of us gets hungry, I like to have something delicious ready. This year I planned two dishes: my bodacious frit-TATA (originally Debi’s recipe, but tweaked into my own) and eggnog baked French toast. Both required preparation the night before.

Although I can’t seem to find the frittata recipe on my blog, I’m sure I’ve shared it before. Basically, it’s potatoes, cheese, eggs, and sausage. Savory. Delicious.

Here’s the French toast recipe we followed. It was new to us. We enjoyed it immensely, and its very sweet, Christmas-flavored goodness was the perfect companion to the frittata. 

The new part of this Christmas breakfast tradition—and my favorite part, the one I hope stays—is that Katie and Jack prepared the frittata and French toast. The only thing I really did was put them in the oven on Christmas morning. We loved turning the chef responsibilities over to them, and they loved all the compliments from our stuffed moufs. :)

“Tradition!” Those Anatevkans were really onto something.

Sep. 20: Holiday tradition

It’s Day #20 of the September Blog Challenge. Ten more days left! Today’s topic:

What is your favorite holiday and the traditions you celebrate?

As much as I love that Christmas is an entire season long, with all the décor, music, cards from old friends, and gift-giving, I’d have to say that Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday.

Why I love Thanksgiving

• All the great food! I’m not a huge turkey fan, and I don’t like to be the one in charge of preparing it (their wings really creep me out, even more than finding the gross organs inside), but a traditional turkey dinner is all kinds o’ awesome.
• No pressure of exchanging gifts.
• We usually spend the day with people we like.
• It’s one of two days of the year (the other being Super Bowl Sunday) that I actually like the sound of football going all day long.
• The reminder and opportunity to express our gratitude for what we have in our lives. I especially love to hear what my kids are grateful for—funny, it’s NEVER each other.
• I get to start decorating for Christmas the next day. Yay!
• Did I mention the mashed potatoes?

What I don’t like about Thanksgiving

• Vic almost always has to work the day after Thanksgiving. Boo.
• Black Friday. I haaaaate Black Friday, except for it being a good excuse not to leave the house AND to eat all the good leftovers before Vic gets home from work.
• By Sunday, another turkey sandwich meal is most unappealing.
• Our family doesn’t really have any traditions for this holiday. Why is that??? It seems every year we’re with different people, sometimes at our house and sometimes theirs, and although the turkey dinner is somewhat constant, almost nothing else is. I don’t know if I ever realized that until just now. Soooo… let’s say our Thanksgiving tradition is that we don’t have a tradition. Yeah. That works.

What about you? What’s your favorite holiday and what traditions do you celebrate when it comes around each year?

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If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.

Dec. 26: Christmas-y meme

1. Location: President Obama and his family celebrated Christmas in Hawaii this year. If you and your family could celebrate the holiday anyplace but where you currently live, where would you go?
   
   The year after we got married we vacationed in Hawaii for two weeks of December. Although we were home by Christmas, it made the season feel very short and we agreed we missed out on a lot of the traditions of home by being someplace tropical for half the month. Since then, I’ve had no interest in being anywhere but home—or a similar climate, anyway—but nowadays I don’t think it’d take much to be convinced otherwise. In fact, as long as I have some family members with me on Christmas, I’m pretty sure I’d be happy just about anywhere.
   
2. Mood: What’s your mood this holiday season?
   
   Given my current health situation, the happiness of the holiday season this year was probably more welcome than ever. I don’t think I ever felt like our celebrations should be tempered. I love this time of year—and it appears I love it NO MATTER WHAT.
   
3. Food: What are your favorite holiday foods?
   
   I love the traditional Christmas dinners—turkey’s good, beef’s good, ham’s good… I just like the tradition of the big, celebratory meal with lots of people at the table. I also love frosted sugar cookies, fudge, and that gross grocery store peppermint taffy. And Pez. And candy canes. And hot apple cider. And Life Savers storybooks. And… and… and… It’s all nummers. ‘Cept eggnog. I’m not a fan of eggnog.
   
4. Giving: Nearly 70 percent of Americans say they give to charities during the holiday season. Do you regularly donate money during the holidays, and if so, do you give to the same group(s) each year or do you change it up from year to year?
   
   We don’t usually donate money, but always do things for Toys for Tots or other agencies that collect new toys for needy children. We usually contribute to food drives. I used to do Salvation Army red bucket donations, but avoided them this year after reading about their homophobia.
   
5. Traditions: Do you have any holiday traditions, like opening one gift on Christmas Eve, or prolonging the gift opening by having each person take a turn opening one gift at a time while everyone else watches?
   
   Although I love the idea of opening gifts one at a time, it’s really difficult to do with young children. I wrote up most of our traditions in my Christmas report this morning. Other traditions we have involve decorating the tree, Christmas music, sending out cards, etc. I had a good excuse to skip out on a lot of those efforts this year, but it just wouldn’t have felt like Christmas if I had.

I’d love to read your responses! Please share them in a comment below or on your own blog.

Dec. 24: The Santa Land Diaries

If you've never heard David Sedaris tell of his experiences as "Crumpet," a Macy's Department Store elf at Christmastime, listen to the audio here, courtesy of NPR. It's about nine minutes long and totally worth it.

A bit of trivia: In the movie "Elf" (one of the best Christmas movies ever, IMO), when Buddy approaches Jovie she asks, "Did Crumpet put you up to this?" Coincidence? I think not.

We're getting ready for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Chinese food. Nummers. This year we've got 16 people around the table. Yikes. Come on by, and we'll serenade you with an exuberant "Fa ra ra ra ra..."

Happy Christmas Eve Day and many lovies!

Jen