1. If you celebrate Christmas, what are your traditions?
Lots of family activities - craft fairs, holiday movie and/or theatre performance, afternoon tea/gift exchange with friends, open house, trip to the mall to see the decorations, Target shopping trip, Christmas Eve breakfast out followed by Barnes & Noble shopping trip, drive through the holiday lights, Christmas Eve buffet, open one gift on Christmas Eve (always pajamas for Sophia), and a very relaxed Christmas Day usually a pajama day.
2. We don't celebrate Hanukkah but have many friends who do and we love to see photos of their celebration.
3. What are your holiday plans this year?
A quiet couple of days with Sophia and FaceTime with Vic. Lots of advance planning for Christmas in July 2021 when we will all be together again!
4. Favorite recipe you are willing to share.
For as long as I can remember, we have had a baked ham on Christmas Eve. It was on the buffet table when I was a child and it's on our buffet table now. It's quite simple, a bone-in ham that's already fully cooked and just has to be heated. It is glazed with a mixture of brown sugar, French's yellow mustard, and Coca-Cola and covered with pineapple slices. Sophia's godmother's boys called it Auntie Pam's Ham.
5. What are you most looking forward to in 2021?
Picking Vic up at the airport, welcoming him back to the continental United States.
6. Gift wrapping...love it or hate it?
I enjoy gift wrapping although I'd like to be more creative with ribbon and bows and other embellishments but since they would end up in the trash, I don't bother. I invested in quite a collection of decorative boxes that are just beautiful and I use them year after year. Some of the designs are really exquisite - elaborate ornaments, vintage Santas, wintery scenes with horse-drawn sleighs.
7. What are you having as your holiday meal?
Auntie Pam's Ham, of course!
8. Open gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?
Christmas morning definitely! We have only opened gifts twice on Christmas Eve and I really disliked both times. The first was the first year Vic and I celebrated Christmas together - we went to midnight mass (he was Catholic at the time) and then to some friends' house for Nochebuena, a Spanish tradition, which is the biggest feast of the Christmas season. The Philippines is heavily influenced by Spanish culture so Nochebuena is celebrated by Filipino families. I don't think we got home until 3:00am, went to sleep, and woke up in the afternoon which in my mind meant that we had slept through Christmas. Not a fan at all.
We did it again about five years later during our first year in Chicago when Vic's aunt invited us for Christmas. I didn't want to go, Christmas is celebrated at home, not two hours away after a drive through the snow of an Illinois winter. I knew that there was going to be an expected midnight mass service (by this time Vic had abandoned Catholicism) after gift-opening and although we skipped mass and went to bed when everyone else left for church, the next morning was Christmas Day and it was just like a regular day. We were in Chicago for a couple more years but we didn't go again.
Christmas Day is a day for getting up early (me!), sitting by the lit Christmas tree with a cup of coffee and thinking back on Christmases past, family and friends who are no longer with us to celebrate, and on this year's Christmas, all the wonderful family and friends who sent cards with photos of their families. New children, new grandchildren, new pets, new homes, promotions, graduations, wonderful celebrations. It's a quiet time of reflection. Slowly, the rest of the household comes to life and we heat up breakfast pastries, make fresh coffee, and then start opening presents. We probably spend the better part of the morning and early afternoon exploring our gifts and then as things wind down, we'll all have a new book or magazine to enjoy or a new movie. It's a pajama day, we don't go anywhere, no-one comes over and that's just the way we like it.
Christmas morning mayhem
9. What are you doing New Year's Eve?
Usually nothing, most years we don't make it up until midnight. This year, I might because it will be mid-afternoon for Vic so we'll FaceTime and wish each other a Happy New Year.
10. Do you have a word for 2021?
2020 was ADAPT, so I think 2021 will be ACCEPT. I've adapted to major changes this year and in 2021. I'm going to sit back and accept what comes my way. Work is going well, Vic will be home in the summer, Sophia is making plans for her life going forward, we all have good health (and will hopefully be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible), we have a warm, comfortable home, acceptance will go hand in hand with thankfulness.
Accept is a great word choice for 2021, and one I think all of us can use. I feel exactly the same way about a cozy Christmas morning at home. When I was growing up, we often spent Christmas day driving hours from grandparent to grandparent. When I got married, we decided we would always be in our own home Christmas morning. Also, I dated a guy from Mexico after college and spent one Christmas with his family. It was exactly as you described...very late night on Christmas Eve and NOTHING on Christmas day. I was so sad to be alone in my apartment on Christmas that year! Somehow I missed this month's prompt, so maybe I'll post it tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Your word for 2021 is a good choice. I've started thinking about mine but haven't landed on one yet. The gift boxes are lovely. BTW, thank you for the Christmas card!
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