Christmas Traditions

I'd like to thank Mr. Humphrey for the best gift of all, a break in the topics allowing me to get caught up in a reasonable period of time. :)

In anycase my family has a lot of traditions in addition to the norm of wrapping presents and putting them under the tree (has anyone ever stopped and considered how absolutely ridiculous that is!? I mean the only thing more ridiculous than putting presents under a tree is putting presents under a FAKE tree!). My grandma started most of these traditions on her own, where she got the ideas from is beyond me.

Everything starts with Christmas Eve... in the MORNING. This is all because my dad's mom had already packed the traditions into Christmas and my dad couldn't be budged from the traditions he grew up with, so my Grandma being the kind woman she is encouraged my mom to start her own traditions. (At this rate my grandkids will have a month full of traditions, not just a couple days). So my mom, because she was accustomed to having cinnamon rolls Christmas morning wanted to maintain that tradition atleast in a sense, so we have them Christmas Eve morning, since as I said, my dad can't be convinced to alter his ways.

For dinner that night we have corn chowder. Who doesn't want a combination of canned cream corn, deviled ham and cream of celery soup? Yum! Actually, it does taste much better than it sounds, though this year for the second year in a row I haven't eaten it since I no longer eat meat. But that is to be served with cheese, salami and crackers. And who would we be to forget the veggie platter? (That's my domain).

Christmas morning starts at a pre set time, be there on time or meet the sharp glare of my brother and me. However the presents under the tree must not be touched, that's for later. We may only open our stockings. In them is always candy, cheetos and a sugary cerial. This year however I requested that there be no junk food (It's way too tempting and there's lots of it as is), so Santa being the humorous fellow that he is provided me with instead of candy an eggplant and raddishes. And instead of cheetos dried berries and mango, and in the place of a sugary cereal Special K.

Proceeding the opening of stockings breakfast is to be prepared and served. My grandma her entire childhood was forced to eat oatmeal every day for breakfast, INCLUDING Christmas, so she decided her children would never have to endure that. So she inovated the least nutritious meal one could think of. Our main course is SOS, and for those of you who don't know what that means, I will not explain the acronymn but will tell you what it is. SOS is a white sauce with sliced packaged ham added to it, served on toasted English muffins, that's some classy stuff. And while my mom has since opted for fresh fruit, the Frost family tradition would also be to have sherbot ice cream with frozen fruit and 7 UP as a side dish. There's a nutritious breakfast for all you health nuts!

After breakfast is entirely cleaned up and everyone is sitting around the tree, and yes, I mean EVERYONE, even that person who said you could start because they needed to run to the rest room, we begin opening presents. We start youngest and go to oldest, and not only do we open presents one at a time, but we take the time to enjoy looking at everyone else's presents. This has caused present opening to last until 3 PM on occations...

Sometime in the afternoon on Christmas, though we are rarely are consistant with time, we cook a turkey and prepare what most people would consider a classic Thanksgiving Dinner. And then the remainder of the day is spent relaxing and enjoying our new items. :)