A New Christmas Tradition

by Katie Cook

On my mom’s side of the family, we started a new Christmas tradition four years ago. It stemmed from of a couple of issues we were having with the gift-giving season. First, Christmas was just getting too expensive. Second, we were physically farther apart, making it more difficult to keep up with each others’ lives. The presents were becoming less meaningful, and more of a financial burden. There’s no joy in giving a gift out of necessity, only to wonder if the cousin or uncle even liked it.

Being the problem solver that I am, I came up with a new system. We would do the Secret Santa name-draw thing, only there was a theme – keepsakes and memories. And, there was no spending minimum or maximum. The first year was hard– everyone struggled with what the theme meant, and nobody knew what to expect in the way of gifts. The “secret” part was hard to keep, because we were all so stumped on what to give. But the gifts, or memories rather, were truly a blessing.

That first year, my cousin Bucky gave me a Joy of Cooking cookbook that had been my late grandmother’s; and to add to the memory, he spelled my name wrong when writing on the inside cover (he happens to have another cousin named Katy with a “y”). He scribbled a correction, and I love it all the more.

Last year, my Uncle Dave gave my Aunt Tina a floor tile, made into a trivet, from the house they grew up in – one he’d been holding onto for years. My grandfather had picked up the Mexican tiles on one of his road trips south of the border in the 60’s. Other gifts included a quilt that had been on my grandmother’s guest bed for years, photo gifts, a harmonica, an old Navy chest that was my grandfathers at one time, Christmas ornaments and more.

I’m always so excited to see whose name I’ll draw, because it really brings back wonderful memories of me and that person… the time my uncles Lee and Dave had a “beard-off” with me as the sole judge to see whose beard was softer, playing a game of “hide the pillow’”with my brother Bill and cousin Holly, pushing Dixie & Bucky on the tire swing, persuading my parents to let me drive the mini van home, sprinkling bird seed with my grandpa, wrapping gifts in Sunday’s colorful comic strips with my grandma, fishing with my father off the pier, or just catching up with my Aunt Tina.

To me, this is what Christmas is about. Jesus was the gift that keeps on giving and I hope my family’s little tradition, in some small way, can follow suit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Advent Devotional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.