When I was very little, I'd get up before anyone else and go sit by the tree. The tree was bright, with packages under it, and our stockings hanging off the cardboard fireplace.
One by one, my brothers would join me, and we'd open our stockings and pig out on the candy and the orange we always got, until our parents came in.
Then the trains were turned on, followed by riotous noise of tearing paper and exclamations. There was no taking turns, no watching. It was a free for all, and I loved it. -Laura Austan
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When I was about 10 years old, with nine of us living in a small house in Phoenix, Ariz. and without any extra money for a Christmas tree, my mother decided to go out to the desert and find a tumbleweed. She took a roll of cotton (not cotton balls); she unraveled it and wrapped each delicate branch, simulating snow. She then placed tiny lights and ornaments on the branches.
The tumbleweed sat on our console-style TV in the living room, where Santa delivered each of us a new sweater, socks, or another practical gift.
My mother has just turned 96, and I will always be grateful for her creative imagination and caring for her children. -Nancy Clingan
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The first time I watched A Christmas Story with my dad, I was mesmerized. He kept quoting the characters and erupting in genuine, belly-jiggling laughter. What made this old movie so entertaining to him? Every Christmas, we would put on a channel that ran the movie continuously for 24 hours.
Ralphie's adventures have become the background to my Christmas. When I loop the DVD in my own house, I feel like I'm back at home laughing right alongside my dad. We text each other quotes in the weeks before Christmas, and it gets me into the holiday spirit. “Bumpusses!” -Morgan Broadfoot
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My favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal, when I was a youngster, was the “Broken Glass Salad” my grandmother would serve. It was blocks of all the colors of Jell-O, held together with whipped cream and - I believe - crushed graham crackers.
The Thanksgiving after my grandmother died, we looked for the recipe so we could make it ourselves. After much searching, we found it - not under salads at all.
The cookbook called it “Broken Glass Dessert.” My grandmother had changed it into a salad by serving it on a leaf of lettuce. -Charlene Wakefield
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A couple of short notes: Watching Dad put up the Moravian Star on the porch, which meant the beginning of Advent and signaled that Christmas was not far off. At Christmas, that brand new box of 64 Crayolas under the tree, as the previous year's box was down to stubs.
But I would be remiss if I did not mention the arrival of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. toy catalog, just to date myself.
All of those were annual events. -Rick Hege
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Every December, we'd go into downtown Chicago to Orchestra Hall to see The Nutcracker ballet, a tradition I carried on with my daughter and my mom until 2004, when she was too frail to go. I have a DVD of Baryshnikov from long ago, which brings back magic memories of a young child and aspiring ballerina.
Nowadays, I always make sure we watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Story.
I used to be able to recite “'Twas the Night Before Christmas” in Portuguese, a real show-stopper after a few cups of eggnog! -Dianne Howard
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For our family - all eight of my aunts and uncles (give or take), their spouses, their kids - Christmas Eve every year was a time to all come together in truce. The who varied year to year, but the what remained solid and true.
The heat always came in toasty, but a fire in the grate sunk in deeper. It warmed our very hearts and melted away all traces of Yankee reluctance. Many copies of “'Twas the Night Before Christmas” - from versions hastily purchased at dollar stores to elaborate heirlooms - were strewn everywhere so that everyone could have a copy as we read it aloud, one line each around a circle. Under the tree spilled presents to spoil the latest set of grandchildren.
Then all would be quiet. A strong Southie brogue would break through. My grandfather would enthrall us all with the macabre tale of “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” He knew it word for word.
“The Northern Lights have seen queeah sights...”
My grandfather would fill the room with his magnanimity and gentle heart. The wry bravado of blue-collar Boston and service in World War II gave the story extra pause, as it seemed to be steeped in echoes of “I've been there.”
When he started to decline from Alzheimer's Disease, I took over the tradition. I had used the poem for a school project, which was the story we went with, but really I just think it was that I loved both my grandparents - who loved me more than anything - and I would have had the hardest time of everyone with letting go of things like that. And so the tradition continued, until he passed away.
Now many years later, I have two cousins who live nearby. One has the perpetual assignment of reading 20 minutes a night, which seems like a chore to me. One day, I happened to bring my family's old copy of Robert Service's poetry book with “Sam McGee.”
This cousin never knew our grandfather. I mentioned what the book was only briefly; I didn't want to upset her. I really did have the good intentions of making the 20 minutes more bearable.
I have many cousins, but I know these two very well. I admit, I do an older family member thing of covertly passing on childhood traditions and being secretly gleeful when one of them sticks.
So what stronger and more loving tradition do I have than that of Sam McGee?
She began to read, asking me to recite it with her.
I was so proud as we finished the poem. Whether this tradition sticks or not, I told her, with all the love, “I couldn't have done it better myself.” -Dylan Gallagher