Mary Angel

(12/2023) When I say holiday season most people think of Christmas, or other December holidays. What if I told you the holiday season has already started. I view part of fall and the beginning of winter as the holiday season. After all, is there any other time of the year when so many big, fun, family-oriented holidays are in such a short period of time. In a two-month period we have major holidays.

We begin on October 31st with Halloween. My family has always loved Halloween. When the kids were very young, dressing up to go trick-or-treating caused enough excitement to create apoplexies in the kids. Even my mother-in-law who did not buy into this particular holiday, found a new love for seeing how excited the kids were. It didn’t hurt that the grand daughters were dressed like Disney Princesses and smiling ear to ear. My own mom would dress up and hand out candy at our house while we were trick-or-treating. As the kids got older, they went from walking around with us to walking around with their friends. My husband even got in on the game, by having a little charcuterie counter for the parents. When they got "too old" for trick-or-treating we would help out at Trunk-or-Treat at our old church. My mom participated in this as well by decorating her trunk and handing out candy. Her trademark was a blinking laughing skeleton necklace.

Not even a month later and it was time for Thanksgiving. This entire holiday is about family. We actually start Thanksgiving the Wednesday night before actual Thanksgiving. It has become a tradition that we have our dear friends over to hang out, eat appetizers, and have a celebratory drink together. Over the years we have lost some family members and Thanksgiving has gotten smaller, but still heart warming and amazing. Whenever you can find an opportunity to get family and friends together for a meal, it is a blessing. Thanksgiving dinner at our house is very traditional, turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple and pumpkin pies (alamode if you prefer). Oh, I forgot to mention Meme’s burnt bottoms. These are the biscuits my mom makes and always burns the bottoms. One time since I have had kids, she did not burn the bottoms and the kids were actually disappointed. Every once in a while, my husband will throw in a new dish or appetizer for everyone to try out, but we still have the family favorites. This is my husband’s favorite holiday of the fall season, because he loves when the whole family gets together and shares what each one of us are thankful for. Cliché but awesome!

Next, we have Black Friday, okay it isn’t a real holiday. For us it really does seem like one. I guess you can make anything into a holiday, even it is just for your family. Look at Festivus! Black Friday began as a holiday for us as more of an extension of Thanksgiving. The family would get together for Thanksgiving and then on Black Friday all us girls would head off to a shopping destination and the boys would converge on our house to overeat and burp and fart at will (at least that was their joke). My mom and mother-in-law got more time with the grand daughters and completed most, if not all, of their Christmas shopping in that one weekend. Both boys and girls would enjoy some meals out at restaurants and a whole lot of bonding time. My daughters would usually get a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, where Meme would disappear to her favorite video games and then produce a ton of tickets for the girls. It was a win/ win situation.

Next comes the big one in the kids’ eyes anyway. Christmas is always an amazing time in our house. Over the years (depending on the layout of the house) we have decorated anywhere from a little to a lot. We always have a cartoon themed Christmas tree (I say it’s for the kids, but actually it began long before they were born) There is another smaller tree with White House and fancy hand me down ornaments, and a bowl on the table full of my husband’s grandma’s ornaments. There are many other decorations that switch places every year, some stay in the tub one year and come out the next, but there are always the stead fast guaranteed ones. Decorating is a family event. We put Christmas music on, the kids start placing ornaments on the tree, I take pictures, and my husband makes some sort of treat (hot chocolates, or popcorn, etc.). As the ornaments are going up the kids are reminiscing about the year they received each one, yes a new ornament each year (and labeled with initials and date on the bottom). My hope is that when the kids move out, they will each take their ornaments and start their own family traditions. Decorating happens the weekend after Thanksgiving or the following weekend if they the girls trip takes up every waking minute.

The rest of December is filled with tasks to get ready for the big day. I know I sound like one of Santa’s elves, but there is a lot to be done. There will be many family and/or friend dinners and gift exchanges to attend. There might even be a white elephant or two that I will need to take care of. My youngest and I will also have to squeeze in a Christmas Craft Day for her and her friends. Although I had stopped this for a few years thinking everyone had outgrown it, apparently, I was wrong. I simply needed to pivot and make more age-appropriate crafts. Last year when I reinstated this event, the girls went crazy and have been asking for this year’s date since July. I will still keep some of the favorites for nostalgia reasons, but I have added crafts like, card making and intricate ornaments. Of course, there will be Christmas movies and cookies!

Before I know it, and when I am still completely unprepared, the day will be upon us. We will get the gifts out the night before, which started as a tradition when Santa was alive and well. In the morning my parents will come sit with us to open gifts and then my brother will come over for family breakfast. As the kids get older the breakfast is just as important as the gifts. There will be gift opening, squeals of joy, texts of love and happy holidays to family and friends, and of course Christmas dinner. There will be no lunch, as everyone gorged themselves on the breakfast casseroles and bacon, but there will be dinner. There isn’t much difference between Thanksgiving and Christmas except the Thanksgiving turkey turns into a Christmas ham. It seems that these two meals only happen twice a year, even though everyone loves them.

Call it the magic of the holiday season, but everything is a little brighter and family time is a little sweeter. I hope your family has a wonderful and merry holiday season!

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