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Dec. 4th, 2012 10:33 pm
Entheiligter Abend
Today I called my sister to touch base regarding the upcoming holidays--When do I need to RSVP for the big family party? What are we getting our stepmom? etc.--and in passing she mentioned that she wanted to move the celebration at my father's up a day, from the 24th to the 23rd. We did something like this last year so that she could attend her husband's family party and she found it such a nice breather that "I'd like to keep it if I can". I shrugged and let it pass, but confessed afterwards to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu that it made me a little sad. In a sense, Christmas Eve dinner at my father's was the last vestige of an old German tradition passed down through his side of the family.
I mean, yes, we only started having two full celebrations after my parents separated and, yes, this particular division doubtless came about because the big family party for Mom's people had always been Christmas Day (another longstanding tradition that got ditched some years back). Still, we did have a Christmas Eve tradition before that: we were each allowed to select one gift from under the tree to unwrap. Now for all I know my parents started this themselves to buy a little peace from our yapping and were completely unaware that in doing so they were echoing the German tradition of serving up presents on Christmas Night. (Dad's memoirs are sadly light on the matter of Christmas traditions.) But at some point I made that connexion and it pleased me.
But Christmas is for children--or at least that aspect of it is--and what made sense for the four of us doesn't work as well for the four of hers. They want to see their cousins and I can't begrudge them that, not when I have so many fond memories of running around all three stories of Grandma and Grandpa's old house with mine. As we discussed at today's holiday stress workshop, it's an opportunity to come up with a new tradition. Wasn't I just the other day reminiscing about the year when they couldn't host and my Christmas Eve dinner ended up being half a barbecued duck from a Cantonese place on South Grand? That's something even my stern old German ancestors might've seen their way to giving a stamp of approval.
monshu that it made me a little sad. In a sense, Christmas Eve dinner at my father's was the last vestige of an old German tradition passed down through his side of the family.I mean, yes, we only started having two full celebrations after my parents separated and, yes, this particular division doubtless came about because the big family party for Mom's people had always been Christmas Day (another longstanding tradition that got ditched some years back). Still, we did have a Christmas Eve tradition before that: we were each allowed to select one gift from under the tree to unwrap. Now for all I know my parents started this themselves to buy a little peace from our yapping and were completely unaware that in doing so they were echoing the German tradition of serving up presents on Christmas Night. (Dad's memoirs are sadly light on the matter of Christmas traditions.) But at some point I made that connexion and it pleased me.
But Christmas is for children--or at least that aspect of it is--and what made sense for the four of us doesn't work as well for the four of hers. They want to see their cousins and I can't begrudge them that, not when I have so many fond memories of running around all three stories of Grandma and Grandpa's old house with mine. As we discussed at today's holiday stress workshop, it's an opportunity to come up with a new tradition. Wasn't I just the other day reminiscing about the year when they couldn't host and my Christmas Eve dinner ended up being half a barbecued duck from a Cantonese place on South Grand? That's something even my stern old German ancestors might've seen their way to giving a stamp of approval.