Christmas Traditions (Covering Eve and Day, so Long) in Book One: The Not So Daily Briefs 2014

It is only Christmas Eve by a few hours, but better to post this now so it gets done, eh?

Gutten… whenever you read this. Today is Christmas Eve and while I know a large number of people in this earth simply see it as a Wednesday or a Secular Holiday… I do have to honor my family and the truth of things. Christmas (named so for being Christ Mass) is a holiday remembering the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Ironically, not an important holiday for the faith… Easter and the Easter Season is the important holiday. However… the pagans of the Old World celebrated the Winter Solstice with such style and panache, that the evangelical parts of Christianity resorted to (essentially) bribery for the sake of conversion. Biblical historians suggest that the modern month of December is highly unlikely to have been the birth of Christ considering the specific statements made about how Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. SO… now that we’ve gotten through the Political Correct crap................

I am a huge fan of tradition because tradition ties us to the heritage of our past. That being said, I also don’t believe in following tradition for the sake of tradition if that tradition has no value or merit. I just say that because… well, I think it is important before discussing traditions to know where the writer is on their value and merit. Geeze, all these preambles, you’d suspect I was some kind of lawyer, lol.

ANYway, Christmas Eve at our house would start much in the same way as many other days… many other days, at least, in which there was the high likelihood of guests. So, lots of vacuuming, dusting, cleaning, making the house look “presentable.” After a good day of that, we’d go to our church… which we would have to get there an hour or two in advance… big holidays like Christmas tend to quadruple (or more) the attendance numbers. Lots of great music, including traditional “Oh Holy Night” by one of Mom’s friends. Typically an awesome sermon, some kind of event with the children’s groups and a candlelight singing of Silent Night. Rofl… if anyone is interested, apparently, they will be livestreaming this years’ services here. After that service, we’d go to The Moores. The Moores was a big Old Money party that was part of family tradition from my father’s youth. THIS is one of those things where I say traditions aren’t always necessary to be upheld.

I’ll explain it through Comic Book metaphor :) With family, I often use Superman stuff because… well, good reason. My father’s name is Kent, his father’s name was Kent. A Kent married a Lois. My initials are CK. We are a midwest family.... oh, lots of reasons. ANYWAY… explaining the Moores through Superman. The Moores always threw a giant party on Christmas Eve and invited the Movers and Shakers of the city because, frankly, the Moores were a well connected Old Money family… and the family friends of theirs had a tendency to become the movers and shakers. But back to Superman to explain it in a convoluted nerdy comic book way:
Essentially… imagine MONEY AND POWER as Superpowers and Super Powered People as the only ones in the Justice League (yes, for this story we are ignoring Batman). Now… imagine my Grandfather… Kent… is Superman. Kent fell in love with Lois, she having no super powers. But… I mean, it is freaking Superman… if he wants to bring Lois to a Justice League party… who is going to say no. Well, let’s go further down the line. How about we assume that Professor Emil Hamilton at S.T.A.R. Labs is able to find a way for Lois and Kent to have a baby… only catch is, like all hybrid creatures, the child is only half-Kryptonian. So, he has considerably less power. That child is my father, the half-Kryptonian. Okay… he’s Superman’s son… I mean… sure, he can’t fly and he doesn’t have the eye-abilities or the invulnerability… but he has super strength and maybe he doesn’t age as fast as humans; so he is okay at the Justice League party as well… I mean, he isn’t given the same respect as other Super Powered Kids but at least his father was somebody. NOW let’s go further down the line. Kent Jr. married a human woman and had kids. Those children were even more diluted. No visible super powers at all! BUT the Justice League had a tradition in place… Superman’s family is welcome… even after all this time. But now you have almost completely depowered kids running around the Justice League with children who barely even know Superman… as rough as it may have been for Kent Jr. it is worse for the kids.

THAT was the Moore’s party for my brother and I. This was a family that retained their wealth and influence and had known my family for a long time. But just as the rest of the world is starting to understand… when you earn the wealth and influence you treat people a lot differently than when you inherit it. So the kids that were the age of my brother and I? Their parents grew up in wealth and private schools, they grew up in wealth and private schools… they would discuss “the finer things” and look to us like semi-trash. We weren’t poor or uncultured… we just weren’t Old Money Over Privileged. So… I suppose all of that is a very long, needlessly long, way of saying… I’m glad we don’t do the party at the Moore’s anymore.

There is however an amazing dinner we have! This is the traditional family dinner that, from what I know, comes to us from Bermuda and Wales and that line of the family. It is this amazing Oyster Stew! It tastes a-ma-zing!

But of course… as with so many meals… the awesomest of awesome, the bestest best.... is THE DESSERT! Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom!!!!!!!! This thing is freaking… just… holy crap… this whole thing is just… ga.....

The dessert is called Steamed Pudding… and as awesome as steamed pudding is… the “frosting on top” is the golden sauce… I’m drooling right now thinking about it. I Google Image searched to try to share with you all but… no. Google Image doesn’t know what I’m talking about. They keep suggesting things and no. None of them are correct. Which, actually, makes what my family makes so much more awesome that Google doesn’t know what I mean.

After the amazing dinner and the amazing dessert, we would go over to my Grandfather’s church. This is the church where my brother got married, this is the church where I got married. It is a beautiful old Episcopal Cathedral in the center of downtown Des Moines. Frankly… after the food, and due to the late hour… as a child, I’d fall asleep a lot. As I got older, I started being the one that asked to go. There is just a lot of character and tradition in that old place.

THEN.... SLEEP. Sleep sleepy sleep sleep. It is wonderful to sleep but is also wonderful because there are puppies and dogs make everything awesome.

Christmas morning, we wake up… admittedly with considerably less enthusiasm than when I was a child. The coffee drinkers huddle around the coffee machine and everyone of us circles around the snack plate with all the doughnut holes and other goodies. Eventually, when people are settling down and ready for presents, we gather around the trees and hand out the stockings filled with trinkets and fruit. Before we open any gifts, though, we have to read The Christmas Story… the real one… from Luke Chapter 2. After reading it and praying; we open presents in a very polite turn-based manner. As the present opening draws to an end, Dad breaks out THE MIXING BOWL and starts making awesome Alcoholic Eggnog. As he is doing that, and we are drinking it, Mom makes a great breakfast brunch. It is this fantastic egg casserole that tastes wonderful. I mean, really… every single item of food from Christmas Eve Night to Christmas Day Mid Afternoon is just wonderful!

After that… we all usually have to take at least an hour or hour and a half nap. Maybe it is the food, maybe it is the family, maybe it is early morning, maybe it is the copious amounts of alcohol. :) But… that is Christmas.

It is wonderful and I am super excited for it. The wife and I have to work today. I have morning court and afternoon court; the wife works until 8 pm. So… yeah, we won’t get to enjoy all of the wonderful Christmas traditions this year. But… this year we get to see family… including the dogs AND a baby! It should be awesome.