Christmas Traditions

 

photo via

I'm in the mood! Christmas is such a magical time. As a kid, I had a pretty different view of the holiday than I do now. Not just because my preferences in gifts have changed throughout the years, but I appreciate it much more.

As a kid, growing up in a small town outside of Columbus, Ohio (Pataskala, to be exact), snow was a given. Typically by Thanksgiving the first snowfall had already arrived, and for a kid, that is heaven. For the past twelve years, I've lived in Oklahoma where snow by Christmas is never certain. In fact, just about every time it does snow here, it's like the whole city shuts down for at least the first day because they don't know what to do.

photo via

When we lived in Ohio, we would all go over to my Grandma Puckett's house for homemade pecan rolls and chocolate milk. We have quite a large family there, and spending it with so many cousins and aunts and uncles, and especially my grandma Puckett, is one of the things I have cherished most about my childhood. My grandma always had the most decorated tree I'd ever seen. There were so many unique ornaments, and there was hardly a branch that wasn't adorned with one. It was always a race to find the pickle ornament. She also had hundreds (literally) of Santa Clauses. Each year, us cousins would try to count them all. My favorite was a bungee jumping Santa.

Since we've lived in Oklahoma, we still have homemade pecan rolls and chocolate milk. And we also listen to the same Christmas cd each year (Bebe & Cece Winans). There's another tradition that we hold onto. We've always had a manger scene and we would set it all out except for the baby Jesus, each year us kids would take turns placing him in his little trough on Christmas day. It was a way for my parents to help us focus on what Christmas is all about. Nowadays my nephew usually puts him in and it's always a fun thing to watch.

With everyone growing up, we've had to adjust our traditions and be more flexible. That's kind of a tough thing to adjust to for me because traditions make the Holidays special. 

But it's also exciting now to adopt new traditions. My husband and his family are from Poland and this will be my fourth year celebrating with them. I love how different their traditions are, and this year my family is joining in on them and I couldn't be more excited. Maybe tomorrow I'll write a post about their traditions because they really are so interesting and different from what I'm used to.

One thing is clear: no matter how many traditions come or go, I miss the certainty of snow. I'm heartsick for it. It just doesn't feel right without it. 

post via