It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Of course this comes out the day after Christmas but I'm just going to assume all those decorations are still up. In a lot of ways, Christmas for the Stones felt like a bigger, flashier sequel to Thanksgiving every year. Just like that November holiday, the proceedings would largely be conducted from my grandparents' family home over in Falls Church with a bigger spread for lunch though the turkey would be swapped out for a yuletide roast with my father and I competing over who got to eat the most end pieces because that was always totally the best part (not a die hard competition, mind you, there were other members of the family that deserved a piece). My grandmother's beloved Jello was there too but for Christmas she added sparkling cider that somehow gave it more of a kick; probably a placebo effect, I don't see how the carbonation would translate.
The usual decorative traditions were all in place for our own family home: Christmas lights strewn across the bushes in our front yard looking kind of like garbage because none of us were particularly great at the whole exterior decor thing (an argument could be made for interior decor as well). A wreath hung on our front door, a great evergreen contrast to the deep red that entrance had painted over. The Christmas tree itself was the real treat; we would only ever set it up and decorate it as a family because of what it meant to us. There were ornaments that dated from my father's own childhood through college and my sister and my own infancies; a trip down our family's memory lane with each ornament carrying its own story. A family fun fact is that neither us nor my grandparents ever used a real pine tree; always fake as hell. I think my sister still has it actually.
Like most families, presents at the homestead would be opened as an ensemble first thing in the morning. My parents had very quickly and very smartly established a rule that my sister and I couldn’t wake them before eight that morning. You can bet Anne and I were watching that clock very closely but we gave them their time. It never ceased to amaze me how the final yuletide presentation was set up overnight with presents placed all under the tree, the stockings stuffed, even the cookies and milk for Santa consumed save for a handful of crumbs and traces of milk. Even with the Father Christmas ruse up, I always loved that attention to detail. And no light glowed warmer than those covering the tree that morning.
After tearing through our presents (a couple weeks ago, I wrote about my personal favorite on here), we would get dressed after a light breakfast and drive over to my grandparents. The festivities would continue with the big Christmas lunch followed by presents once the food settled. From there we would have some light sandwiches while listening to old records, my father having set up a blaze in the fireplace while I quietly played solitaire in the background; passing the time with a simple game of pattern formation through chance.
Christmas, not New Year’s Eve, always felt like the capper to a year’s events. Both celebratory and contemplative, it was party popper set off after months of activity when whatever we had gone through, for better or worse, was put aside for family tradition. A lot of formative elements came from those Christmases: Cooking with family, listening to the same dusty rock and roll records my father had decades before (A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac almost always being among them), a propensity for playing cards, getting into misadventures with my sister. My fondest memories of my family center around holidays and Christmas is probably the most cogent. Truly the most wonderful time of the year.
The usual decorative traditions were all in place for our own family home: Christmas lights strewn across the bushes in our front yard looking kind of like garbage because none of us were particularly great at the whole exterior decor thing (an argument could be made for interior decor as well). A wreath hung on our front door, a great evergreen contrast to the deep red that entrance had painted over. The Christmas tree itself was the real treat; we would only ever set it up and decorate it as a family because of what it meant to us. There were ornaments that dated from my father's own childhood through college and my sister and my own infancies; a trip down our family's memory lane with each ornament carrying its own story. A family fun fact is that neither us nor my grandparents ever used a real pine tree; always fake as hell. I think my sister still has it actually.
Like most families, presents at the homestead would be opened as an ensemble first thing in the morning. My parents had very quickly and very smartly established a rule that my sister and I couldn’t wake them before eight that morning. You can bet Anne and I were watching that clock very closely but we gave them their time. It never ceased to amaze me how the final yuletide presentation was set up overnight with presents placed all under the tree, the stockings stuffed, even the cookies and milk for Santa consumed save for a handful of crumbs and traces of milk. Even with the Father Christmas ruse up, I always loved that attention to detail. And no light glowed warmer than those covering the tree that morning.
After tearing through our presents (a couple weeks ago, I wrote about my personal favorite on here), we would get dressed after a light breakfast and drive over to my grandparents. The festivities would continue with the big Christmas lunch followed by presents once the food settled. From there we would have some light sandwiches while listening to old records, my father having set up a blaze in the fireplace while I quietly played solitaire in the background; passing the time with a simple game of pattern formation through chance.
Christmas, not New Year’s Eve, always felt like the capper to a year’s events. Both celebratory and contemplative, it was party popper set off after months of activity when whatever we had gone through, for better or worse, was put aside for family tradition. A lot of formative elements came from those Christmases: Cooking with family, listening to the same dusty rock and roll records my father had decades before (A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac almost always being among them), a propensity for playing cards, getting into misadventures with my sister. My fondest memories of my family center around holidays and Christmas is probably the most cogent. Truly the most wonderful time of the year.
