How I made the holidays my own

There was a time when my extended family was bigger and Christmas was a giant affair. No one had yet gotten divorced, and painful family rifts hadn't occurred; things felt relatively stable, or so it seemed.

The sheer number of presents during that era was so staggering that the actual Christmas tree was barely visible under them. I suspect that many of  those gifts were purchased to save face. You didn’t want to appear empty handed in case your sister-in-law gave you something, that sort of thing.

I don’t blame my family for their excessiveness back then, they were doing Christmas the way they were taught. All of them were recent immigrants and many of them were benefiting from the prosperity of the 90’s. 

Decades later, Christmas still gives my mother anxiety, probably due to all the money she spent to keep up appearances. Financial anxiety aside (a topic I promise I will get to another time), there was something else that stood out to me from my Christmases as a young child. Something that still required money, but in my opinion, was money well spent. It was what we did on Christmas Day after the mayhem of the night before.

Christmas Day was simple. All the kids in the family would be treated to a late breakfast or a trip to the movie theater. At least one parent would chaperone, and now that I think back on it, I have a feeling most of the parents were hungover from the night prior, so it was a win-win situation for them. 

Even to this day, I continue to uphold this tradition by streaming older movies with my husband around Christmas, and they don’t need to have a holiday theme. In the past two years I’ve been obsessed with watching the Spielberg-directed Ready Player One around Christmas time. I think it’s the “against all odds” storyline and the golden ticket at the end of it all (Willy-Wonka style) that satisfies my urges for a feel-good story.

A few other traditions I can think of: 1) My husband and I like to send out holiday cards, sometimes we handwrite them to add a personal touch, 2) visiting the Macy’s holiday window displays in Manhattan is free and fun, and, 3) decorating our tree as a family is something that brings me a lot of joy.

A glimpse of our tree.

Traditions allow me to sink into a deep gratitude for what I do have and it lessens the sadness for the things I no longer have, like those big family reunions that weren’t only about gift giving but about play and dance. Making a tradition my own also honors the memories of the past and allows me to take from them what was beautiful and leave behind the rest.

As Christmas approaches, my hope for you, reader, is that you take some time to reflect on what your own holiday traditions are, if you haven’t verbalized them just yet.

And if you do know what your traditions are, my invitation is that you continue to uphold them, because at the end of the day it is those memories, not the gifts, that will leave an imprint.

As always, thank you for reading.