Christmas Traditions

I love this time of year. I love the traditions, music, snow, planning, memories and peacefulness that the Holiday season brings. As a little girl, we would always have Christmas Eve dinner at my Grandma Hogg's house. Of course the record player was playing Christmas music, and this was the album that I loved listening to at my Grandma's, Roger Whitaker (ok kids, records/albums were what was played before tapes, which were before CDs, which came before Ipods.) When I was around 7 years old, my Mom, Grandma, and Aunts started dipping chocolates. We had a neighbor who was a professional candy dipper. She would come for 3 straight days and dip. I don't know how many thousands of chocolates she did in those 3 days, but it was amazing. We would come home from school and sit across from Lola and stir the chocolate and visit with her. It was mesmerizing to watch her swift hand movements and the way she got the chocolate to mold the way she wanted it to. After she flipped the chocolate onto the wax paper board, she would make the marking on top to let us know what flavor it was. The prep work for these 3 days was just as much a tradition in our house....making the fondant. The hot candy mixture was poured out on a marble slab and left to cool. Then we would stir air into it with a spatula, until it turned creamy. It was always a contest to see who could turn a batch the quickest. We dipped chocolates every year until the year I got married. That was the last year that Lola dipped them for us. We have made some meager attempts at dipping, but they will never look the way Lola did them. Another tradition that I remember was with my Dad's family. We would do a christmas progressive dinner. We would go to Aunts and Uncles houses and at one point, Santa would show up. 10 years ago, we started this Tradition with my brothers and sisters. Some traditions that I have started for my family are simple, yet something that I look forward to more and more each year. I have struck a deal with Mrs. Clause, and she does christmas morning breakfast for us. She sets the table, down to a christmas center piece, leaves pumpkin waffle batter in the fridge, along with buttermilk syrup (yummy), breakfast casserole and juice all make up. Last of all, she leaves the kids a letter expressing her love and adoration for them. Another tradition we have come to love is "Christmas in the Nighttime Sky". The Saturday after Thanksgiving, after the christmas tree is decorated, we bundle up and watch the fireworks on the deck. Then we have hot chocolate and a treat. One more tradition that I have carried on? Roger Whitaker is still my all time favorite Christmas CD. I love that my kids have started to sing along with the songs. It makes me feel close to my Grandma. It makes me feel that somehow there is a connection to my children and Grandma, even though they have never met in this life. My hope is that when my childen are grown and someone askes them their favorite part of Christmas, they will say "Pumpkin Waffles". Because it is so much more than Pumpkin Waffles. "Such beautiful keepsakes remind us of loved ones now gone and turn our minds to loved ones unborn. They form a bridge between family past and family future." Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander "These eternal keepsakes also form a bridge between past and future and bind generations together in ways that no other keepsake can."