Our Christmas Traditions Old & New

It's hard to imagine we moved into this neighborhood over 30 years ago. The family in the middle house are one of the few original residents who moved here when we did. The family in the house on the left has been here about 25 years.

At Christmas, we have a tradition to decorate our homes with lights. Nothing extravagant. Just enough to create a great atmosphere.

Since we moved to California, we have no family near us. My wife, Mary's nephews live in New York. The rest of our family members live in England, Canada, Australia, Spain, Switzerland and India. Our son lives in Utah and will be spending Christmas with his growing family.

Our tradition is to put on a typical English Christmas meal with roast turkey, ham, roast potatoes,and petite peas. For desert, we have the traditional Christmas Pudding that we drench in brandy and set it on fire till the flames die down. We add hot custard to each individual serving. Notice we do not go overboard with more items.

At the start f the meal we break Christmas Crackers(bon bons as they are also called). A firecracker inside snaps with a noise as two people tear the cracker apart. Inside there is a funny hat that we have to wear throughout the meal. There is also a surprise gift inside.

Wealthy people have elaborate hats and expensive gifts inside like diamonds and gold!

After we have our meal we open our Christmas Presents.

This year we a good friend who lost her husband last year will be joining us like she did last year. So Mary and I will not be alone.

I have spent Christmas in four different countries in my life. India, England, Canada and the US. Christmas in India was the most different. We were little kids then.

There were no such thing as department stores and supermarkets. We were taken to the tailors a couple of months before Christmas where my brother and I would select the material for our suits. And the girls, for their dresses. After picking the style, we were measured up. A few weeks later we would visit the tailor for a pre-fit. The clothes would not be completely finished so that changes could be easily made if necessary. When we finally picked up our clothes they would fit perfectly.

In the weeks before Christmas the shops would be decorated and Christmas fair would be everywhere. Most families prized their recipe for Christmas cake. These were variations of fruit cake. In our home we got the raw fruit and dried them ourselves to make raisins. Nuts were also used. But these were purchased ready to eat. Ingredients like flour and sugar were purchased. The bakery store would send one of their bakers to our home with a huge mixing bowl where all the ingredients were mixed.

Prior to the baker arriving we would line many circular cake tins with wax paper. And the baker would ladle dollops of the mixed ingredients into each. These tins would be taken back to the bakery where they would be baked.

The day of the delivery before Christmas, we as special day. That was when we would taste the cake to make sure it all turned out according to plan. This never failed.

During the week before Christmas, we would join other kids at various parties set up for children, of which some would be our friends. As always Santa Claus would visit with gifts for all of us. Later we discovered it was our parents who paid for these. And Santa wasn't real ha-ha!

On Christmas Day we would all dress up in our finery and go to Church. We looked forward to seeing the creche and the Baby Jesus in the middle. The rest of the day would be spent visiting friends. And when we ended up back home, other friends would visit us.

Of course, we would all serve our unique versions of the Christmas cakes. It was fun to rate all of them with each other. Some were more moist. Wile there were cakes that were dry. However, I loved the fruit and nuts and preferred cakes that had a lot of these in them no matter the level of moistness!

In that era, we decorated the Christmas Tree as well as the home on Christmas Eve. The Christmas feeling was prolonged long after Christmas Day was over. Quite the opposite of what happens in the Western World. The Christmas season didn't officially end until the Feast Of The Three Kings which was a few weeks later. New Years was in the middle so we had a fantastic extension of the Holiday Season.

With that in mind, I challenge everyone at Wealthy Affiliate to keep up the spirit of Christmas and the Holidays long after these days are past.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to All!

Edwin