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Week of December 7 - December 13, 2012
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas by Kate Towne Sherwin for Saratoga TODAY I came to motherhood with certain ideas about everything—from the daily routine that my children and I would have, to the traditions we as a family would adopt, the foods the kids would love, the games they would play, the clothes they would wear. No surprise that this vision looked remarkably like my own childhood, as that’s what I knew and loved and therefore
thought would be best for my little ones (My poor husband has been very patient with me over the years!). I was particularly wound-up about the holidays—I so loved the way my parents celebrated every holiday, and I was desperate for my kids to have equally joyous memories, especially about Christmas. My favorite memories of Christmas in my childhood home have nothing to do with presents; instead, it’s so many small details that comprise the flavor notes of Christmas for me. For example, my dad always played Christmas records in the weeks leading up to Christmas. He’s still playing them—the same ones I remember—and even the crackle of the record static before the music starts playing is enough to send me right back to being a little girl. We always got our Christmas tree
at St. Clement’s, and we were all so excited when Dad put it up in the designated spot. Dad has always taken the time to re-tell the story of when he was a little boy and he snuck downstairs during the night on Christmas Eve, and saw Santa leaving him the bike Dad had asked for! Dad was so excited as he crept back to bed, but the next morning there wasn’t any bike there at all, and Dad knew it was because he’d broken the rule and gotten out of bed. (My boys listen wide-eyed and silent every time they hear that story, just like my siblings and I always did!) I remember Santa leaving sooty footprints on the living room floor and forgetting to close the fireplace screen when he went back up the chimney. We had cinnamon buns with orange glaze and my mom’s homemade bread on Christmas morning, and we often went for a walk after dinner
Christmas night. When my husband and I started our own family, I found that some things turned out just the way I hoped, while others didn’t. I admit I might have made myself (and probably my husband too) a little crazy in those first few years, frantic that we didn’t have a record player on which to play old Christmas records or a fireplace for Santa to come down. And the kids don’t like cinnamon buns with orange glaze! Christmas just isn’t Christmas without these things! Of course, as you all know, it was just a matter of coming to know our own family’s dynamic and character, and blending the traditions of our families of origin as well as coming up with new ones, and I found that much of that only really cemented as the kids got older—old enough to remember what we did at the last holiday and want to repeat it, or to request that we do a certain thing or eat a certain food. While we also get our Christmas tree from St. Clement’s every year, just like my family, a new tradition to our household is the event we make of trimming the tree. When the older boys were little, we decorated the tree after they went to bed (sort of a date night, with a nice dinner, which we ate while decorating), but last year I really wanted the boys to be excited about the lights and the ornaments, and somewhat involved, so I decided to make a whole evening of it: I made a lot of different fun foods (pigs-in-blankets, potato pancakes, popcorn, cheese and crackers, and non-alcoholic eggnog [which was really more like vanilla milkshakes]), and I put them out on a little table near the tree (a big deal in our house—I hardly ever let the kids eat away from the kitchen table!). We put Christmas movies on in the next room (Frosty, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa), and let the boys wander around eating and watching the Christmas shows while we all took part in decoratContinued on page 23