Christmas is less than two weeks away.
Whoa!
With Thanksgiving falling so late, I’m feeling a little as if I’m on a toboggan, whooshing down a hill, headed for a jump—and I’m still trying to get my feet in the sled.
I’ll be honest. I probably won’t get any Christmas cards written. Or that pithy letter. Or even find the time to make homemade gifts for the kids’ teachers.
I’m just being honest here, I’ll probably just give out a bunch of the derma roller products, since It has been my favorite for the past year.
But, I have identified the ten top things I love about a Warren Christmas that I refuse to miss.
Not in order of importance, mind you.
Epic Christmas shopping. Every year, our family picks names and heads to the mall for one giant shopping event. We break into two teams (and then switch about an hour later), and it’s supposed to be clandestine. It usually ends up being a sort of military operation where we all find ourselves in Barnes and Noble, ducking behind shelves, hiding our loot, and trying to figure out how to sneak out of the store without being seen by the other party.
“We shall cut down the mightiest tree in the forest . . . with a herring.” We cut down our tree every year from our property, and we really hope that we can still do the same ext year when we move to the www.karkanja.com/malta-property/ new property we bought. We have five lush acres of pine, so it’s not tough . . . the biggest challenge, after the great debate on which tree to get, is how to get it home. It’s always too big, and our men tromp through the forest, as if the tree has legs.
We named the bow saw . . . A Herring. Ten points if you can tell me what movie that is from.
By the way, inevitably it will be so tall, it will bow at the top (usually it’s about eighteen feet).
The Great Light Untangle. And Light Out hunt. I do not understand why we have to get NEW lights every year. Or why, when we have all the lights strung on the tree, the one at the very top decides to go out.
I’m just saying, I think it’s a diabolical KGB plot. (Thank you, all those years in Russia!)
The Great Puzzle Debate – how big should the puzzle be? We gather around the tree to ponder this question every year. One year, we got too big for our britches and aimed for 5,000. We still aren’t ready to talk about that. But the pain lingers in Warren history, and we skirt the edges of the conversation with words like, ”I think 3,000 is big enough,” and, “Fifteen-hundred is a nice size.” We do our puzzle on a sheet of plywood in the family room. This may or may not have been taken from our 5,000 to 50 failure year. (Did I say that out loud?)
Forced Puzzling Fun. The Great Puzzle Debate is followed by a sustaining echo of, “What are you doing watching television, gaming, eating, reading . . . [you fill in in the blank]?” We have a puzzle to do! In other words, “You will have fun whether you like it or not.” Listen, if you think I’m kidding, I’ll send you Peter the Puzzle Enforcer for a day.
NO CHRISTMAS WISH LISTS. Yes. Because, In fact, Peter has issues. Starting in early September the entire family is issued the “Don’t tell me what you want for Christmas, or you won’t get it!” threat. There are no such things as Christmas wish lists around here. If you breathe even a hint of a wish for something, you’ll get coal. I wish I were kidding.
My husband’s wretched, terrible Christmas song playlist. We plug in Andrew’s iPod at the beginning of the season and loop his list of assembled Christmas songs continuously every year. I’m not sure how this happened, but on that list is “Mele Kalikimaka” by Bing Crosby (Hawaiian Christmas Song), a couple Russian songs that have nothing to do with Christmas (Devushka Iz Visshego Obshestva by Valerie Meladze is a family favorite . . . seriously). And then there’s the song we all hate: “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.” My children have informed me that if they ever saw me kissing Santa, they’d be traumatized for life, and they’d take Santa out.
The Christmas Cookie Decorating contest. Started as a way to bring our extended family into the Christmas Eve celebration, we began decorating Christmas cookies every year and sending the pictures (and essays) to our family spread around the US for their votes. The winner is announced and videotaped the next morning and awarded the Warren family traveling trophy.
Not that it’s a big deal or anything.
The annual Burned Bun Throw. This is a new event. OK, not so new—in fact, I’ve been burning and throwing buns for years. Just not on purpose. But invariably, in all the baking that goes on for two days and the craziness, there will be a batch of burned buns. And instead of crying and throwing something (other than the bun)—not like that would happen, mind you—we have instituted INTENTIONAL bun burning. And throwing. Just to get it out of our system. We’re judged (informally—no trophies as yet) on distance and throwing style. Yes, everything is a competition. That’s just how we, um, bun.
Okay, the fact is, these people are really the only tradition I care about. Hanging out with them, hearing their laughter. Realizing how amazingly blessed I am to have them in my life.
What are your favorite family traditions?
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(P.S. Go throw a burned bun. You’ll love it, I promise!)
Merry Christmas!
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