A tradition from my mother's side of the family that we are continuing is to make some type of soup or stew on Christmas Eve. The idea is to have something warm, hearty and easy to prepare. The last few years we have made Cock-a-Leekie soup to honor Allen's Scottish heritage. Unfortunately, it is very time consuming. This year I decided to just make chili. Our primary goal for the holiday is to not spend it slaving away in the kitchen. We want to relax, enjoy time as a family and play with Samuel.
Another tradition that we retained is something that both of our families practiced. Each child opens one gift under the tree before heading off to bed. I pulled out three small gifts for Samuel and let him choose which one he wanted to open. He picked the Leap Frog Guitar, probably because the wrapping paper was the crunchiest. He had a great time ripping off the paper and was really anxious for me to get his new toy out of the box. I demonstrated how to rock out on the guitar and then showed him all of the buttons he could push to make it sing songs.
I made my favorite Christmas cookies, oatmeal cranberry chocolate chip, just for Santa. I poured a glass of milk and placed three cookies on a plate. Samuel was a big helper and carried the plate into the foyer so we could leave it on the curio by the tree. He made it the whole way and then decided to "taste test" Santa's cookies.
A tradition that my mom and I shared was for her to read me the "Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve. Last year, for Samuel's first Christmas, she brought me my childhood copy of the story which was given to me by my Aunt Deb & Uncle Dave in 1982. Reading from the book that I had as a child makes this tradition even more special. Allen and I also read a few other Christmas stories with Samuel. Allen read him "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," which has always been one of my favorites. He also read him The Christmas Story from his Beginner Bible. That was something we did in my family too.
Visions of sugarplums are dancing in his head.
Once Samuel was down for the night, Allen (a.k.a. Santa's Helper) got busy finishing the climb-on school bus, Samuel's gift from Jolly St. Nick. In my family and Allen's, Santa gifts were always left under the tree unwrapped and out of the boxes. We didn't think to assemble his Santa gift last year since he was so small and it was a mistake! Allen spent half the day putting together a Baby Einstein activity jumper. We won't make that mistake again! Besides, we remember how much fun it was to come out to the living room and have toys ready to be played with. While Dad worked on the bus, I busied myself stuffing the stockings for Samuel and Allen.
Allen and I finished our Christmas Eve by enjoying homemade cocoa (a gift from our neighbors) and a few Christmas cookies for ourselves. We snuggled on the couch and watched one of our favorite holiday movies, "Scrooged," while we waited to hear sleigh bells and hoof-steps on the roof.
