Christmas Card 2014

                   

At my office Christmas gathering today we talked about our Christmas traditions.  Family is very important in the Mahoning Valley resulting in many traditions traversing the years through our very large, extended ethnic families.  Third generation Americans have turned up the volume on those traditions as we see our children marry outside of our ethnic group, have our grandchildren, and move out of the area in search of greener pastures!!  They have become Americanized as the Feast of the Seven Fishes morphs into beer and wings at Quaker Steak and Lube.

 For people like me, the transition has been somewhat difficult.  Those of us from very large families also attend lots of funerals.  My parents, aunts and uncles and many of my cousins are now gone. What began in my life as two huge Christmas gatherings on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day has become what restaurants are open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!!!!  My wife has a brother and sister out of town.  We will have a holiday gathering the Sunday after.  But as for Christmas Eve and Day, there’s not much there.  I have to tell you….I was feeling kind of bad!!!!

So…as I fought off the bi-polar Christmas blues…I decided to think about what traditions me and my nuclear family actually have.  Maybe not specifically for Christmas Eve or Day, but throughout the season I discovered that there are many.  Here are some:

1)            Thanksgiving Weekend – I love Thanksgiving.  It is my favorite holiday, low key without much associated guilt.  But it also kicks off the Christmas season. My son and I still go out for breakfast on Black Friday, and actually do some Christmas shopping.  That is the weekend we put up the outside lights and my wife puts up all of the inside Christmas decorations.  We go out for pizza.  Usually visit with some friends and watch lots of football.  It is probably the most fun weekend of the year.  That is a great tradition. 

2)            Music – I love music.  I especially love Christmas music.  I have hundreds of Christmas CD’s I no longer listen to because I download hundreds of Christmas albums through Amazon Cloud Player.  It is wonderful.  I pay less for music now than I did 20 years ago…and I can play it anywhere!!!  This year has been probably the best year for new Christmas music in decades.  New music as well as updated arrangements of old chestnuts abound!!!  I bought all of them!!!!

3)            Shopping – Our anniversary, my wife’s birthday, and Christmas are all within 4 weeks of each other.  Rather than try to figure out what my wife wants for any of the above, we take a shopping day.  We go to our favorite stores in town or in Cleveland or Pittsburgh, and pick out what she wants.  Then have dinner and have a nice evening at home afterwards.  It is one of my favorite days of the year.

4)            Club Events – We have belonged to Tippecanoe Country Club since 1984.    The club has two big club events over the Christmas season and we go to both of them.  As we have gotten older…so have the events!!!!  They will be reinvented over the next year and I expect the new ones to be every bit as fun as the old ones.

5)            Getting Together with Friends – We have made lots of friends over the years, and we make it point to spend lots of time with our friends over the Christmas season.  As my family died off, we began to entertain our friends at my house on Christmas night.  We have done this for at least 15 years.  This year, because of the strong possibility we might have to be out of town on Christmas, we switched it to two nights of friends at our house.  Sunday will be an open house for many of the folks with whom I work and have become close friends.  We also have a group of friends we see every month for Spaghetti Night at the Squaw Creek Country Club who will be joining us at our house the Monday after Christmas.  We also will be gathering with my long time college Newman Organization friends for our annual Christmas reunion, something we have done every year for the past 40 years.  One of the blessings of my life.

6)            Christmas Movies – I am a Christmas movie junkie.  I watch them all.  Some are better than others.  My top three favorites are White Christmas, The Christmas Visitor (makes me cry every time), and Love Actually.  Honorable mentions go to A Christmas Story, Scrooged, and Christmas Vacation. 

Maybe for me and my family Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have become anti-climatic.  But that doesn't mean the season as a whole is not a great time.  Maybe my Christmas tradition is to have no traditions at all.  Change it up every year.  Maybe it will be Chinese food this year…or a trip to Pittsburgh to enjoy the Christmas buffet at the William Penn.  Who knows? Whatever it is, change happens.  Not better...not worse.  Just different. 

From my family to yours, have a Merry Christmas and Blessed and Prosperous New Year.  

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