Christmas is on the 24th in my family. We spend the daytime part putting up and decorating the tree and then we eat dinner and then we open presents and stay up late. I think there was a time when I was very young that we'd get up early on the 25th to open presents but I can't really remember those times too clearly. What I remember is trying to get through my dinner meal on the 24th so that presents could be opened.
My mother is German (for those who haven't met her, she is a little 5'1.5" dynamo and she still sports a slight German accent). [That .5 inch in height is very important too.] She grew up in Germany and didn't leave the continent until she married my dad when she was 20. The 24th is the traditional German Christmas celebration day. Trees were not put up until that day because they wouldn't last long because they would dry out quickly and the candles that were put on the branches would be a fire hazard. The tree is traditionally kept up until New Years and then its down. So...you'd better enjoy it while its up. In other words, don't blink too long at my mother's house or you'll miss Christmas. That has also taught us Shipmans to party hard while the getting's good. You don't dawdle, refuse liquor or leave any Christmas cookies uneaten because you will have to wait a whole year for those same cookies to come around again.
This year was the first year my little gorgeous niece Hannah really sort of got to enjoy Christmas. I don't think she understands the deal yet but she got into opening packages and she certainly enjoyed eating cookies. My sister-in-law Esther (God bless her) has had to put up with our eccentricities for 7 years now (wow....she's been married to my brother for a long time) and she had planned to go to their local church's Christmas pageant on the 24th. My mother said no problema and she worked the decorating, eating and present opening around the pageant. Hannah was already a little "hopped up" on sugar cookies when she was brought to the church. She still had her faithful tupperware container of Goldfish crackers clutched in her hand though. The kids were dressed up as Mary and Joseph and they went knocking on 3 different doors asking for shelter (you know the story) and they were singing their requests at each door. It was awesome because at one point a kid got stage fright and just stood there. The piano kept repeating the opening bars of the song-thingy and the kid kept staring. Poor thing. It all felt so familiar. What's a Christmas pageant without a little meltdown? Hannah was standing on my lap so that she could look over the people at the kids. She had a few Goldfish in her mouth and she sneezed.....RIGHT INTO MY MOUTH AND MY EYE. It also hit my mother's eye. I got little bits of chewed up Goldfish in my mouth as well. Oh yeah...did I mention that Hannah has a cold? Actually, when doesn't she have a cold? We jokingly call her Typhoid Hannah. So.....you guessed it....I have a cold again. I don't know how I could have avoided it after that exposure. I also don't think I'll ever eat another Goldfish cracker again (at least not the cheddar cheese kind).
While the virus was incubating in its new host (me), I still drank a lot of wine and ate bratwurst and German potato salad. My mother has always explained that dinner on the 24th is traditionally light and easy because the mother has so much to do on that day. I find this highly suspect because dinner on the 25th is big in America despite all the present stuff....sounds a little fishy to me. Fortunately my entire family loves that meal and we would pick it even if we could have our choice of anything. Actually, there was a time when we were allowed to choose anything we wanted for our meal on the 24th. I would usually pick Chicken Parmesan and my brother would pick German sausages and fried potatoes (brat kartoffel). I can't imagine that my mother was overjoyed to hear me say Chicken Parmesan each year so I suspect that the "light tradition" actually originated that way.
We then opening presents and Hannah wasn't that interested until Todd and Esther made a big show of being interested in a particular package. They would open one corner of the wrapping and say "ooohhhhh...I wonder what this is...." Hannah would come over and want to see what they were looking at. It was very clever and totally cute. Hannah got a Curious George jack in the box which was a hit. Hannah would be surprised the first 3 or 4 times that George popped out and then she'd just look at him. We had to put it away for a while and re-introduce it so that she'd get excited all over again. In other words, she's brilliant but she can be fooled. I gave her this little alligator toy that she could pull around on a rope that wiggled around as it rolled. She liked it a lot and quickly learned how to maneuver around the chairs in my mother's house with it.
Yes, Christmas was a hit. I'm sure it didn't help my cold one bit that I drank way too much and ate dozens of Christmas cookies. But I only had this one chance! As I blow my nose and prepare my next dose of TheraFlu....
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