article
Christmas Times Two
Holidays mean traditions, whether it’s something you’ve done since you were little, or something that’s been past down from generation to generation. Traditions are what creates the holidays memorable, or exciting, “Moms macaroons!” or “I can’t wait until we go to Grandma’s for dinner” Many families have the same set up of events but no matter what you do, its still heart warming and fun. I believe the best part of traditions are the idea that you can start one every year. My friends family has decided to start making gingerbread houses together, buying everything from the sugar gumdrops to the yummy “snow” frosting. Traditions can bring your family together. Christmas to me has always felt like a time when your schedule slows down and you really get to appreciate your family, something so many of us lose with school, work and just the everyday fast pace of our lives. I always enjoyed the idea that you get to regain some of that Christmas spirit that fickles out as we get older, making snow angels or little reindeer tree ornaments never fails to bring out that little kid that we still all have inside, and it should.
In my family Christmas lacks a little bit in the same sort of excitement that you see on TV, or in your friend’s families. New years however is a different story. People sometimes put New years on the back burner, they want to do everything, eat, open the gifts and all the jazz on the 25th, but what about the awesome night the ball drops confetti flys and you get to start over refreshed, it’s a new year. Part of the traditions my mother grew up with involved grapes, not champagne and noise makers but grapes. While we watched the shimmery ball descend in New York City on the tv we each receive 24 grapes in little bowls we save for this night. Each of us step out on the snow covered front lawn close our eyes and toss twelve grapes out to rid ourselves of twelve months of good luck, throw away your bad decisions, hard times, everything that really didn’t make that previous year all that great. Then we eat or take in twelve months of good luck, for fortune, happiness good wealth, everything you’d want for the following months. So it may seem silly, because it probably doesn’t help a hold lot, but it’s something different and it makes it all the more part of who I am, my traditions.
My favorite traditions don’t involve Christmas, or New Years. Día de los Reyes! January 6th is Three Kings Day. For any Hispanic household this is usually even bigger than Christmas. For us its like, Christmas number two. Every since I can remember we got ready for the, “spirits of the three kind to visit us.” Instead of cookies and milk for santa, we left out sugar cubes, hay and water for the traveling wise men and their camels. The we left our shoes instead of stockings all nice and neat at the door and they’d be filled the next morning with money and all that good stuff.
Sometimes I feel like I just don’t care when December is apon, that I don’t care about Christmas or anything that goes with it. It doesn’t matter what Christmas is, “suppose to mean” like on a religious scale. What it should mean to you is anything that keeps the spirit alive in your, whether it means having the feeling of generiousity when its time to pass out gives, or whether its just the satication you get from seeing the glowing eyes ony our cousins faces as the play with
Holidays mean traditions, whether it’s something you’ve done since you were little, or something that’s been past down from generation to generation. Traditions are what creates the holidays memorable, or exciting, “Moms macaroons!” or “I can’t wait until we go to Grandma’s for dinner” Many families have the same set up of events but no matter what you do, its still heart warming and fun. I believe the best part of traditions are the idea that you can start one every year. My friends family has decided to start making gingerbread houses together, buying everything from the sugar gumdrops to the yummy “snow” frosting. Traditions can bring your family together. Christmas to me has always felt like a time when your schedule slows down and you really get to appreciate your family, something so many of us lose with school, work and just the everyday fast pace of our lives. I always enjoyed the idea that you get to regain some of that Christmas spirit that fickles out as we get older, making snow angels or little reindeer tree ornaments never fails to bring out that little kid that we still all have inside, and it should.
In my family Christmas lacks a little bit in the same sort of excitement that you see on TV, or in your friend’s families. New years however is a different story. People sometimes put New years on the back burner, they want to do everything, eat, open the gifts and all the jazz on the 25th, but what about the awesome night the ball drops confetti flys and you get to start over refreshed, it’s a new year. Part of the traditions my mother grew up with involved grapes, not champagne and noise makers but grapes. While we watched the shimmery ball descend in New York City on the tv we each receive 24 grapes in little bowls we save for this night. Each of us step out on the snow covered front lawn close our eyes and toss twelve grapes out to rid ourselves of twelve months of good luck, throw away your bad decisions, hard times, everything that really didn’t make that previous year all that great. Then we eat or take in twelve months of good luck, for fortune, happiness good wealth, everything you’d want for the following months. So it may seem silly, because it probably doesn’t help a hold lot, but it’s something different and it makes it all the more part of who I am, my traditions.
My favorite traditions don’t involve Christmas, or New Years. Día de los Reyes! January 6th is Three Kings Day. For any Hispanic household this is usually even bigger than Christmas. For us its like, Christmas number two. Every since I can remember we got ready for the, “spirits of the three kind to visit us.” Instead of cookies and milk for santa, we left out sugar cubes, hay and water for the traveling wise men and their camels. The we left our shoes instead of stockings all nice and neat at the door and they’d be filled the next morning with money and all that good stuff.
Sometimes I feel like I just don’t care when December is apon, that I don’t care about Christmas or anything that goes with it. It doesn’t matter what Christmas is, “suppose to mean” like on a religious scale. What it should mean to you is anything that keeps the spirit alive in your, whether it means having the feeling of generiousity when its time to pass out gives, or whether its just the satication you get from seeing the glowing eyes ony our cousins faces as the play with