From My Perspective: Christmas Memories and Traditions

We all have our own Christmas and holiday traditions and memories that we either continue or that motivate us to create new ones. Some change and evolve over time, and sometimes we go back to the original traditions we knew and loved the most. Some are elaborate, others simple and less demanding.

I have so many memories of the holidays as I was growing up. We had family traditions, food traditions and more.

Some of my earlier holiday memories were spent with an entire family. When I was a child, my parents would drive (for what seemed like forever but was really only a couple of hours) to go to my grandparent’s house or to my aunt’s house, where we would celebrate Christmas. Yes, my family is Jewish, so we would celebrate with Christmas and Hanukkah. Boy, I had some jealous friends because I supposedly got twice the gifts.

One of my favorite gifts as a kid was my first cassette tape. It was Billy Joel’s 52 Street. As I remember, I wanted to marry Billy Joel for a while too. Thankfully, he’s still one of my favorite music artists today and while that cassette is long gone, the memories of opening it up on the first night of Hanukkah is forever engrained in my mind. With the changing times, I bought the CD and now have that same album downloaded into my Apple Music.

One of my other favorite gifts was a little parakeet. He was green and yellow and his name was Herbie. He was my very first “my animal,” and he and I had a pretty good run. For the Christmas following my receipt of Herbie, I shopped for him, and he received a brand new bigger cage with the money I received from family for Christmas that year. Oh, he also got about a year’s supply of millet, which kept him very happy.

After my parents divorced, I spent Christmas Eve with my dad, and Christmas Day with my mom. When I got married and moved back east, we would spend Christmas Eve with my in-laws, and Christmas morning at our house before heading back over to my in-laws for Christmas.

Once I had kids, Christmas took on a very different meaning. We didn’t have a lot of money when my kids were little, but we made the most of what we had. I remember putting things on layaway at Kmart and paying my balance every couple of weeks. I also remember them looking through toy catalogs, like I did when I was younger, proclaiming all the things I wanted from the Sears Christmas Wishbook. Receiving that catalog in the mail was a tradition itself.

Of course, when my kids were little, we would leave cookies for Santa. They were able to open one gift from under the tree on Christmas Eve, and we would read “The Night Before Christmas.”

I carried on the tradition of getting them their own “my pet” when we moved to Philadelphia, and they got a puppy. They named her Angel, which seemed fitting for the occasion, and she was theirs until she passed away ten years later.

The point is, our Christmas memories help us create Christmas traditions. Some, we hold on to and others we create to fit our current lifestyle. There is no real right or wrong way to spend the holidays, as long as it’s not hurting anyone.

I know people who like to spend the holiday alone. Sometimes holidays just bring up a lot of memories that hurt. I remember the first Christmas without my dad. I hated it I didn’t feel like celebrating anything. I didn’t even want to be around people. I did minimally, but really appreciated my time alone that year and the year after. To be honest, this is the first year I’ve felt like getting into the spirit and even decorating since he passed away in 2018.

I’ve created some new traditions for my holidays as I’ve gotten older. One I started a few years ago was to spend Christmas weekend (or my days off) watching the whole Harry Potter movie series. It just makes it feel like Christmas for me. Maybe it’s something about the magical aspect of it all.

I’ve also jumped on the bandwagon this year and have started watching a couple of Hallmark-type Christmas movies each week leading up to the holiday. I also have a stack of Christmas books/novels that I’ve begun to read. I think these types of things appeal to the ‘hopeless romantic and anything is possible’ part of me. There are worse things I could be doing with my time than believing in Christmas fairy tales.

However you spend your holidays, whether with family, with friends, on your own or with people who share the same sentiments as you do for the season, I hope that you are creating memories - and remembering the good ones from years past. Whether those memories lead to new traditions, or put a smile on your face, I wish you well. I wish you happiness for the season, the strength to get through if this is one of those difficult holidays for you, and the courage to celebrate the holidays in your own way, whether others understand or appreciate it or not.