December Traditions

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 Hello and Happy December!

A little-known fact about me: I will wish everyone I meet a happy first of the month for every month. Why? Because I love celebrating the little things. The first frost. The first of every month. The first fire of the season in our wood-burning stove. The first daffodils. The blue-eyed grasses. New paints. First drafts. The list goes on. I figure the little things should be celebrated as much as the big things.

Which is why, I think, that I love traditions, particularly those my family celebrates December with.

Here are a few:

  • We always get a live tree. We used to go as a family to get it, but these days, we just gather as many of us as we can and go down the mountain to get one.
  • We string popcorn for the tree while watching It's a Wonderful Life.
  • The first movie of the season is usually  Elf.
  • I always wrap gifts in shiny blue wrapping paper. I do this because as a little girl, I heard Pretty Paper sung by Randy Travis and there was a stanza that said, "Pretty paper, pretty ribbons are blue." So, I decided to wrap my presents with blue. It looks so pretty!
  • We usually make gingerbread cookies, butter cookies and almond snowballs. Sometimes we'll make sugar cookies (if I'm lucky. I love them, but my mom is sugar-adverse so..).
  • We usually open up a pair of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve so that we'll wake up in Christmas festive gear.
  • We used to go to the theaters every Christmas Eve night after the Christmas Eve service, but we stopped going after the theaters stopped putting out movies we'd like to see. (This tradition started because my mom would be still be wrapping presents and dad had to get us kids out of the house.)
  • Christmas is not complete with our Christmas ham. Not even sure how this tradition started, but the ham has to be there.
  • I get out my Christmas sheet music and clean the rust off of my piano playing. (We have a very old piano that was made before 1912 so it needs to be tuned. I don't care much what it sounds like, but my dad doesn't like the sound.)
  • A recent tradition we have formed is to listen to The Christmas Carol  when we decorate the tree!

What traditions (if any) do you have?

Until next time...

Julia Garcia / Arysta Henry

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