I had a clever post ready to go to summarize God ‘showing up’ for yesterday and today…it was all about ‘tradition’…how when some traditions fall to the wayside sometimes it’s important to replace them with new ones to keep the bonds of history in tact. I’m not saying I won’t finish that oh so ‘clever’ post but I began it at 10am today and now it is nearly 4pm and I need to get in the shower for our Christmas Eve TRADITION with family and friends. 😉 So, if you will, it is important to me to show my family that I am ‘present’ today and tomorrow…I will be ‘revisiting’ my posts from last year. Enjoy!
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Christmas used to be based on a ‘feeling’ for me. When I was young we would gather at Sweetgraw and Papa’s house (my dad’s parents) and all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, their spouses and children would travel from all over for this great celebration.
Laughter bounced from room to room as the voices carried louder and louder with the adults reminiscing and playfully arguing over memories. We never bored of the adult conversations, sitting directly in the middle, listening intensely to the various stories that would grow in detail year after year
Presents were shared but it was never the focus. It was the pride in our family that was the joy of this Christmas tradition. No one missed Christmas Eve. At 10:30pm the matriarchs would gather everyone together. The women in our family would dawn their rabbit and other wild game fir coats some were real and some faux but you never could tell. It was invariably cold and we wanted to present ourselves in our best. Depending on the degree of cold we would either walk the few blocks to midnight Mass or pile into cars for the short drive.
We arrived early enough to squeeze our family into the first 2 or 3 pews, always in the front and with Sweetgraw and Papa on the end. After Mass we would head back to the house and Papa would head to the kitchen to prepare the traditional Christmas morning breakfast of brains and eggs.
Cow brains ladies and gentlemen. And they weren’t so bad mixed in with scrambled eggs. This was the best part of Christmas because it was already 2am and even though not everyone was able to stay we still had at least 25 people around the gigantic dining room table. We would bow our head and Papa would lead us into ‘saying grace’.
These memorable Christmas’ came to pass by the time I was around 12 years old. It took a few years once Papa was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but soon he’d faded along with the early morning Christmas breakfasts. Once he passed and the house was sold the tradition was gone.
Ever since then our large Irish Catholic family struggled to find a new norm, a new tradition which consisted of each individual family celebrating their own way. Gone were the large extended family gatherings. No more first or second cousins telling stories, filling our minds with a picture of what created the very thread of our ancestry. And no more 3rd cousins running through the house chasing one another, relishing in the fact that they were instant friends because of this blood relation.
It is a sad tale, so I apologize for the tone. But I will say what I’ve come to realize this Christmas is that though I miss the tradition of my Christmas past a new tradition is being created for my children. There is no sense in trying to grasp the past. God has taken it back, as he does with everything in the past. Before when I was my kids ages it was about how Christmas made me feel secure, loved, and full of pride for my family. Now it is about recognizing Christ in every one that is around me, embracing the true meaning of what Christmas is all about…and at the same time creating the memories for my kids that lend the same security, love and pride of who they are.
This Christmas we did as we have done for the past at least 8 years. We went to the first Christmas Eve mass, and celebrated that evening with others in our parish community. Christmas morning we woke up to have our family Christmas, then packed up the car and headed to my in-laws for a Christmas brunch before heading on the road to Sherman to be with my parents for Christmas dinner. It is a lot in a matter of two days but we cover the grounds of every one we love. Our parish community. One another and both sets of grandparents and on some special years even aunts, uncle(s) and maybe even their first cousins.
It didn’t dawn on me that this was a tradition until I saw the threat of tears in Seth’s eyes when we considered canceling the road trip to Sherman due to a nasty winter blizzard. “We can’t stay here! We have to go to Sherman. This is what we do!”
It’s not 30+ family members and it’s not brains and eggs at 2am but it is what helps my son see that Christ is with us.
I pray you all have had a very merry and blessed Christmas! Blessings Shannon