Christmas Traditions

My sweet neighbor brought this Advent Calendar to my children several years ago.

The Christmas season always makes me think of my granddaddy. That man loved Christmas. He loved the decorations and the music and he loved to carve a turkey. We always had a houseful of people visit on Christmas Day when he was alive.

My sister and I had the forty-five record of All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, and he would play it for us tirelessly while the two of us danced around in circles. He was the sheriff of our Georgia county for twenty years, so when my mom was growing up, they always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve because he never knew when he would get a call to go into work. Unfortunately, the holidays are always a busy time for officers of the law.

When my mother married and had kids, she continued that tradition with us. Granddaddy was always there for us to open gifts. He delighted in it. Now that I have kids of my own, I have added my own tradition. We attend church service on Christmas Eve and then we come home and eat some chili and then my kids and my sisters kids open their gifts.

Granddaddy has been gone for thirty years now and a tradition he started out of necessity, still lives on. The woman who lives across the street from us brings my kids an Advent Calender every year since we moved in. We have been here for nine years now and at the beginning of the Christmas season, she shows up at our door with two Advent Calendars. She has started a beautiful tradition that my children will always remember and it helps to keep the Christ in Christmas.

I will be sure to pass this on when my kids have kids or maybe when we get new neighbors with young kids. Great traditions have a way of living on.

One of the fabulous things about Christmas is that we can always start new traditions, ones that are meaningful. The best ones leave permanent footprints on our hearts. I still get teary thinking of Granddaddy and his talk of Santy Clause. I’ve learned to appreciate those tears. They are simply physical proof of the love he left me after he went home to be with Jesus.

I wonder what he would say about us continuing to do Christmas the way he started it. I wonder if my kids will continue that tradition when they have kids. I hope so. I hope they will continue to attend a Christmas Eve service too. There’s nothing like the reading of the Christmas Story and singing Silent Night by candlelight with over a hundred other voices, that makes me feel overflowing with peace and joy.

What Christmas traditions do you treasure? What traditions would you like to start? It’s never too late to start something new. You never know, it might be profound enough for your great-grandchildren to continue thirty plus years from now. Let’s make this Christmas one to remember! Feel free to share.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂