Christmas as an adult comes with new traditions and letting go of old traditions.
When I was younger, all the kids would wake up super early and have to sit on the stairs and wait until my parents went downstairs and verified if Santa came or not. It was so much fun having me and my 3 siblings sit giddy on the stairs waiting until my parents let us go. Reminds me now of the start of a nascar race, “Drivers, start your engines” Then after the starting gun we race downstairs and find our pile of loot in respective corners of the room.
My wife’s family is polish, so she makes a Borscht Soup, traditionally it is a beet soup. But her family perfers the Sauerkraut and Mushroom version. Which is about a 3 day process of soaking mushrooms, boiling, letting cool, adding cream, etc. I don’t like mushrooms, but I eat it for one day a year. We also do an opłatek (Christmas Wafer), we take our wafer and pass it around the room and everyone breaks a piece of it and puts it in their soup bowl after saying Merry Christmas to you. A reminder of the body of Christ.
Now, we with our soon to be 5 year old daughter, we just wait until she is ready and go see what Santa has in store for her! She doesn’t quite get it, or at least hasn’t in the past. Excited to see what this year brings.
We also have a tradition of going downtown Chicago to the Chriskindlmarket, a german style market I’m sure @fhassm can embellish on. But we get our spiced wine (Glühwein) have some sausage, potato pancakes, and buy a couple german made ornaments for our tree or as gifts. Then we’ll walk State Street, Window shop, Christmas Shop etc.
Looking forward to making new traditions! Happy Holidays, ALL!
