Hearing about other people’s traditions is often interesting. When my wife and I got married we decided to start a Christmas Eve tradition where we’d pick a country and plan out a dinner consisting of items from it. We’re making sure we’ve got the necessary ingredients for this year’s meal and it brought to mind how comforting and fun family traditions can be.
So what does your family do this time of year (or any time of the year) that you look forward to and helps make the holiday feel like the holiday for you?
None currently.
My dad’s side of the family hasn’t done anything together regularly in decades, it’s always more ad hoc.
My mom’s side, after my grandparents died, fell apart as far as holidays go. Instead of everyone within driving distance (and sometimes further away) getting together at my grandparents’ house and just enjoying the time, it got split up. Pretty much each of the families of the grandkids does their own thing now, and there’s no real communication about holidays (we still talk and see each other, just not for this). The more distant relatives do their thing as wel. Sometimes, someone will send invites for something, and people will show up in smaller numbers. But it’s never on the actual holidays and it’s always obvious that it’s not on the honeys holidays so that they can do things separate as well.
Not that that’s a bad thing, but it feels different.
So, there are no traditions at this point. My household gets together with my sister’s household pretty much to exchange gifts, and that’s it. It isn’t even anything special, it’s just swap whatever, talk during the process, and then it’s over because the only one that doesn’t remember what it used to be like is my kid, because they were adopted after both my grandparents died, and weren’t around at all when my grandfather was still alive. They end up visiting their biological grandparents either during, or right after, Christmas anyway, so even after I adopted them officially, there hasn’t been much time to build new traditions.
It’s fucking weird to be 50 and have those traditions just gone. Like, how we’d show up with hand made cards. That was a thing we did on my mom’s side. Not just the kids, it was adults too, though the folks with no willingness to draw or whatever typically just wrote a nice note. We tried that, and it fell flat. It just doesn’t work when there’s not even a dozen people there.
I tried hosting a hotdog dinner on the 23rd, because that’s what we used to do on Christmas eve, it would just be thirty to sixty people crammed into what was normally a slightly too big house, just shooting the shit, exchanging cards, and eating the dogs with our family toppings ( a family recipe chili sauce, home made chowchow, with fine chopped onions and slaw as options along with condiments), plus the usual snack options, with each household or person having their specialty.
I figured if we did it on the 23rd, it might work. Total fail boat.
Christmas day was the more sit down dinner day, plus santa and any gifts, though most of the crowd would have gone back home the night before, the most distant relatives. But it would still be two tables of people just hip to hip.
One of my cousins tried hosting that, and actually has a bigger house with an even bigger table, and it was still a fail because not even all of the 1st cousins showed up, much less the others. Her husband’s family didn’t show up because even though they were specifically invited, it wasn’t what they usually did, so it fell flat across the board.
The closest thing I have to a tradition now is being sad and trying to not let it fuck anything up tbh. But I keep trying new things, I haven’t given up. It just hasn’t worked.
The reasons are different (people moving away and spreading out) but I kinda feel this. My childhood was a Christmas Eve bake potato bar and pies over at someone’s house filled to the brim with relatives with a gift exchange. It is part of why my my wife and I created the Christmas Eve dinner when we got married. I moved across the country and away from my side of the family her family didn’t really have much in the way of traditions so we decided to start one. I look forward to what we call out ‘International’ Christmas Eve every year but it definitely isn’t the same at this point (13 years) it feels like Christmas but it definitely doesn’t feel like the Christmases of my childhood.
I feel this so hard. My grandma and my mom are both gone 5 years now, and we just lost my MIL last month. Hubby’s family is going to get together same as always, but I know it just won’t be the same and wonder how long they’ll keep it up.
We’ve no kids of our own, and I’ve tried starting a new tradition for just us here and there, but he’s always had pretty bad holiday anxiety so he’s kind of hard to get into the spirit.
I can’t bring myself to even put a tree up anymore.
I’m hoping I have not too many more numb years ahead and will find a jolly group with young blood and young at heart that we can glom onto.
I don’t doubt that you’ll find a path to a good Christmas, most people do. It isn’t like we’re unique in having to transition to a new way of things as the older generation leaves us. That numbness might take longer to fade, but if we stay open to the new, it can.
As a point towards that, Thanksgiving at least has turned into a new tradition for us. My best friend hosts, and it’s all about togetherness.
I keep hoping something will stick for Christmas. Maybe as our kid reaches adulthood, something will form up, that’s what I’m holding onto to keep the current grinchness at bay.