I remember when I was a little girl how magical the holidays always seemed. My brother and I would wake up Christmas morn to find our tree , skimpy at that, all decorated with lots of tinsel on it. Our parents told us Santa had decorated it just for us! Of course, time passes and traditions change a bit. WE decorated the tree as opposed to Santa. BUT the festivities always stayed the same.We would start celebrating on the eve of Christmas with plenty of family and plenty of food and plenty of festivities. Of course we did not open gifts till midnight. I remember all the love and noise and food and merriment with everyone talking at one time. And we continued to celebrate all the way through the New Year.
Times continue to change. Now that I am an adult I WISH for those moments again and only WISH that I have created happy memories and happy times for my children and my family. Will they look back fondly to the holidays as I am now? Do they feel there is a tradition that they long to keep and share with their young ones? I don't know but I hope so.
We have moved our celebrations from a flat in Manhattan to our parents basement in Queens to my brother's home in New Jersey and now to my nephew's home in Westchester County. We gather the family every eve to celebrate the birth of Christ and to watch the young ones open their presents. It is still loud, filled with lots of love and surely lots of food. But I am now hoping that we have our own tradition. One that the whole family will look back on as I am now to my childhood memories and with a longing for things to be the same.
