Christmas rituals
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
My sister and I were talking the other day about the strength of Christmas rituals and where they come from — not necessarily from our childhood, that's for sure. I do recall one Christmas before we moved away from Ramona when my Dad's cousin Lily played Santa Claus. We had Christmas Eve, that year, over at my Aunt Naomi's. When this strange person in red with a big white beard tried to cozy up to me in the front room, I was terrified. That's all the memory I have of that first yuletide season when I was probably three or four years old — terror.
From then on, Santa Claus was not part of our Christmas ritual — not because she scared me to death, but because of religious beliefs. "Put Christ back into Christmas," the preachers said and my father would soon become a preacher. We never had a Christmas tree either, even though this was a big part of the tradition on the Schubert side of the family. They had a tree at home and a tree at church, both lit with real candles. They gathered around the tree on Christmas Eve and sang, "Oh Christmas Tree," (in German, of course) and had presents from Santa Claus and ate a Christmas goose for dinner.
By contrast, my mother bought a small Nativity, sat it over the mantel or on the piano and sprinkled snow over it. On Christmas Eve we had noodle soup with butter balls and after the dishes were done, we opened our presents (and we knew they came from Mom and Dad). Sometimes, when we got older, my sister and I would be doing dishes and Mom would be in the bedroom still wrapping presents — that soon became a Christmas ritual. I used to wonder why she'd insist on wrapping them when we were going to tear the paper off 10 minutes later.
If we were visiting Grandma Ehrhardt's house for Christmas, there were certain foods as part of the ritual: mashed potatoes and gravy, grape-pineapple salad. We still make grape-pineapple salad for holidays and bless Leah Ehrhardt for introducing us to this delicacy.
When I created a home of my own, we began to create Christmas rituals all over again. We saved the menu, substituting soy-products for meat. Up went a Christmas tree with some new kind of ornaments added every year (when decorations became half price). With the advent of children, Santa Claus walked in — my husband even went so far one year that he got up on the roof and stomped around like a reindeer and jingled bells in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, I was inside stuffing stockings with silly things to be opened on Christmas morning, after which we'd eat a leisurely breakfast and probably not have dinner until the middle of the afternoon.
There was still a Nativity scene somewhere in the house — some years, one in every room because I have quite a collection. We added lights to the scene and lights in the windows and eventually lights on the outside of the house and in the trees. We still opened our presents on Christmas Eve (BEFORE we did the dishes) and there was always one present under the tree for the girls that said, "From Santa," even though they really never were believers. After our family went through divorce we added the ritual of eating out at some lovely restaurant on Christmas Eve, because the house seemed empty, even though almost everyone was there. We added inviting extra folk, friends of the family, someone who was lonely, for our Christmas dinner. We added going to a movie on Christmas Day.
And then we moved to Ramona and we added decorating the whole town — no, I'm just kidding. Everyone does their bit in Ramona, decorating their houses, their business. It's become a tradition to light up the prairie.
Gifts have become simplified, "What do you want for Christmas?" asks Tooltime Tim and I haven't the foggiest idea until I remember my kitchen needs cupboards. "Besides that," Tim says with a sigh.
"Let's DO SOMETHING for Christmas, as our gift to each other," suggested my sister and I agreed, so TTT was along for the ride! We planned it, he's driving. And what are we doing? That's a surprise! And surprises are always an important part of the Christmas ritual on another day in the country.
