avamac
Alumni
My family, having old country german grandparents, celebrated Christmas on Christmas EVE...opening family presents after a small dinner, and reserving Christmas morning for the stocking from Santa.
For 30 years, this was a beastly inconvenient arrangement, because the shop was open and busy, and god knows we did not close until the last customer was made happy. Starting at about 4, I would get calls from various family members, wondering when we were closing, and I would explain....again....that we never closed before 6, and often long afterwards.
Now my parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are all gone, and I am the family matriarch. The family homes have been sold. There's just me and the boyfriend, my son and his fiancee, HIS son, a few friends without family, and the pug dogs.
There's no longer an enormous tree--no tree at all. No room full of presents.
Yet the Christmas eve tradition, once justified as being for my grandmother, then for my father, then my mother, persists.
My 40 year old son started calling me at 4, wanting to know when we were closing the shop....
A very merry Christmas to you and your family as you celebrate YOUR traditions....
For 30 years, this was a beastly inconvenient arrangement, because the shop was open and busy, and god knows we did not close until the last customer was made happy. Starting at about 4, I would get calls from various family members, wondering when we were closing, and I would explain....again....that we never closed before 6, and often long afterwards.
Now my parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are all gone, and I am the family matriarch. The family homes have been sold. There's just me and the boyfriend, my son and his fiancee, HIS son, a few friends without family, and the pug dogs.
There's no longer an enormous tree--no tree at all. No room full of presents.
Yet the Christmas eve tradition, once justified as being for my grandmother, then for my father, then my mother, persists.
My 40 year old son started calling me at 4, wanting to know when we were closing the shop....
A very merry Christmas to you and your family as you celebrate YOUR traditions....
