With Christmas soon approaching, it's time to whip out the eggnog, enjoy classic holiday films, and sing Christmas carols – whether they are in tune or not. There's no questioning how special this season is, and part of that is due to the array of Christmas traditions celebrated every year.
Celebrating Christmas would not be complete without a tree, but how you go about getting your tree and decorating it is all part of the fun.
"We always chop down our own tree from a local tree farm," Elizabeth Jolly '12 says. "We don't have a specific date that we do it, but we always need to chop our own."
Another tradition shared by many is attending a Christmas mass or church service, whether it is in the early morning or a midnight mass. But what makes this universally shared event a unique tradition?
"My Christmas tradition with my family is to go to 10 p.m. mass and come home and play Uno," Molly Maher '12 explains of her unique Christmas tradition. "Whoever wins the most times gets to put the baby Jesus in our nativity scene."
"We all get together and watch a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve and then usually go to the Christmas Eve vigil mass at our church," Stephanie Hellmann '14 explains of her family's religious Christmas tradition. "When we get home we decorate the tree and cookies. When we were younger we would set out the cookies with milk and some carrots for the reindeer, but since we're a bit older now we don't really do that anymore."
Of course, no Christmas celebration would be complete without the event of opening up the presents that had been sitting under the tree mocking you for weeks.
"In the morning, everyone wakes up to the smell of breakfast and then we all eat together – this is then quickly followed by the opening of presents," Aaron Reynolds '13 says. "After this, we then head over to my grandmother's house for morefood and morepresents. And this is all usually done before noon!"
Hellmann also has certain traditions pertaining to opening gifts.
"On Christmas Eve we are all allowed to open our Christmas gifts from our family members," she shares. "We sit down and open the gifts going in order of youngest to oldest. After that, we usually just watch Christmas movies all night."
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Some traditions are even more specific than merely eating breakfast and opening presents in a certain order, such as in Jolly's family.
"Every Christmas Eve, each member of my family gets a book and a set of the pajamas – the book can be anything, it's usually a really random book, the pajamas are usually Christmas themed or winter themed in some way," Jolly explains. And her specific traditions do not stop there.
"This is the strangest one," Jolly continues. "On Christmas, after we've finished opening our presents, my mom hides this special pickle ornament in the tree and then we have to try and find it. Whoever finds the pickle ornament gets an extra gift – called the pickle present, which is always in this really old, dilapidated, green wrapped box. However, the present is usually something that the whole family can enjoy like a Wii game, or movie, or I think it was a Johnny Jolly jersey a couple of years ago. I know this tradition came from my mom's side of the family, so I think it's some sort of German or German immigrant thing, but I'm really unclear about the origins."
No matter what your Christmas traditions may be – waking up early to eat breakfast before presents, playing card games, decorating cookies, or hiding a pickle ornament – it certainly would not be Christmas without them.
After all, celebrating traditions with family is what makes Christmas the most wonderful time of the year.
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