Most families, for better or worse, wind up with holiday traditions. They may be Aunt Ava's fruitcake, Cousin Bill's bad behavior, or the holiday ham. Sometimes they are family gatherings that we either anticipate eagerly or dread, or attend with some mixture of both.
When a tradition becomes ingrained, we tend to forget that it hasn't always been that way. Change, when it comes, is with a degree of discomfort. This year marks such an occasion for our family.
Growing up, our family gathered every Christmas Eve at the home of my dad's aunt and uncle. It was a buffet affair with loads of food and four generations of relatives scattered across two floors of the brick ranch home. The women folk had the kitchen and the upstairs area; the men gathered in a smoky room in the basement with a fireplace and a Christmas tree and we children -- siblings and cousins to varying degrees -- roamed the house in a wild mob. It was a terrific holiday tradition. Right up until the year when the great-aunt's recently divorced daughter brought two men from the halfway house where she worked to the family gathering.
(It was the '70s and there had been no interracial family gatherings. After that year, the family quit gathering there at all -- wandering in for some half-hearted holiday hello on Christmas day instead. Last year there was a mixed race couple at the family reunion and I laughed remembering how poorly our family would have accepted them three decades ago.)
Christmas day meant being dragged from our toys to visit the grandparents -- fun with the cousins, but an anxious desire to get back to my holiday goodies. We had lunch at my maternal grandparents' home then, midafternoon, went to my paternal grandparents before returning home to enjoy our loot stuffed with food and exhausted from our early morning.
When I married, Christmas Eve was for visiting my new in-laws. Once again it was three generations of one family under a roof and, when my children came along they joined their cousins with the same wild enthusiasm I once had. Divorce ended that tradition and my mom adopted Christmas Eve as her time. For 20 years we've gathered at her house for our holiday dinner. We spent Christmas Day at home, visiting my grandparents, or perhaps visiting another in-law.
This year, however, that's changing. I'm giving Christmas away, in a sense, although I'm sure that to some folks it may seem I'm taking it. Disrupting the long running tradition, Christmas Eve festivities will be at my home. Although there are a number of reasons, the easiest is to say that now I'm the grandmother and as my daughter said, "Christmas Eve meant going to Grandma's house." Grandbabies don't have to travel so far to a house where they're less comfortable, the burden of cooking for everyone won't be on my mom, hopefully the younger generation will feel less rushed with work and children.
At the same time, I'm giving what has always been my time away. While I look forward to parents, children and grandchildren gathering at my house Christmas Eve, I'm less excited about the gift giving Christmas morning being just hubby and I. For 26 years I've had children under my roof unwrapping their presents on Christmas morning, or I've been anticipating their arrival and a holiday meal.
This year I'm giving them the holiday to celebrate under their own roofs at their own pace. My son will be spending the day, barring any changes in the next few weeks, with his grandparents where he lives; my daughter with the babies at her home with her husband, who will probably have to go in to work later in the day. Neither of them will be expected to come to my house, although I'm not promising I won't show up at theirs.
For the most part, we love to hold on to our holiday traditions, but there comes a time when every family has to make adjustments for distances, deaths, divorces or new generations. In a few years, a new tradition is formed and, although those old memories are still treasured, new ones begin to pile up as well. This year, those new memories begin for us.
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