Best memory is the latest one
When I was little, my family would pick out a Christmas tree. My mother would put the lights on, and then we would all decorate it together. After the boxes of ornaments had been emptied, my mother would put the tinsel on, and the tree would be complete. We would sit in front of the fire, drink hot chocolate, and listen to Bing Crosby.
This year has been different. For the first time, my husband and I decided not to go to my family's house for Christmas. We just moved to Massachusetts, just bought a house here in Harvard, and decided that we wanted to celebrate with our own family. It has been a wonderful Christmas season—different, but wonderful—most especially because now I'm the mom. I put the lights and the tinsel on the tree. I get up early to put the turkey in the oven. I buy and wrap all the presents. I am officially grown-up.
Watching my kids dance around the Christmas tree is completely enchanting. It makes me so happy. But there is nostalgia, too. Part of me misses being a kid and having no concerns other than hot chocolate, presents, whether or not we would get a snow day off from school, and how many days were left until Christmas. But a greater part of me is joyful. Being a child was wonderful, but being a parent, getting to watch my children bursting with excitement at the magic and mystery of Christmas, there is nothing better than that. That is my favorite Christmas memory.
—Katy Covino, Depot Road
It's all about the cookies
My favorite holiday memory? Waking up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday in December. Seventy-two pounds of flour. Ten dozen eggs. This may not sound like a fun combination, but it always provides for a memorable day.
My great-grandmother started the tradition of getting together the entire family between Thanksgiving and Christmas to make Italian Christmas cookies. No gingerbread men, no sugar cookies, no cookie cutters are anywhere to be found. These cookies were all hand-formed. When Nana Betty died, my grandma continued the tradition by hosting the annual cookie day.
The process begins each year, early in the morning, by preparing 10 batches of dough. The first batch is composed of braided cookies dipped in honey, and when the dough is twisted just right the cookies look like perfectly curled ribbon. The second batch is wine cookies. The third batch, made in ravioli trays, is made up of cookies filled with chopped fruit and nuts. Hundreds of cookies are made in the course of eight short hours. With more than 20 people working in a kitchen that comfortably fits five, "cookie operation" is a well-oiled machine, fine-tuned by years of practice.
My cousins and I anxiously count down the days each year until the annual event. For me, it always is the true start of the holiday season. We dress festively, sing our favorite Christmas songs, laugh, exchange stories about the past year, and talk of the year to come. During the holiday season, as my family and I enjoy these wonderful cookies, we not only think of how delicious they are, but we also reminisce about the special way they were prepared.
This is by far my favorite tradition of the holiday season, because I know how proud Nana Betty would be of how we still gather each year to make these cookies in her honor.
—Erin Molinaro, Old Littleton Road
A farewell skate
The tiny ripples in the ice brought all my attention to my feet and keeping upright on the late-December ice. The fierce wind that came up following the previous day's chilly rainstorm had resulted in undulating ridges across the entire length of the bog ice, making for tricky skating. It was a bitterly cold, full-moon evening that December, with one of a string of Canadian cold fronts passing through, with its dry air and laser-sharp skies.
The moonlit ice glowed beneath my skates and turned us into silhouettes racing across the bog. It was our last night in New England before my family moved to the Midwest. The following year, I would impress my 13-year-old Kansas classmates by knowing what was grown in bogs. Cranberries, of course! (The same classmates were incredulous after reading Robert Frost….why in the world would there be a stone wall in the woods? That's when I knew I'd landed in a foreign land.)
But tonight was the last night in my childhood home. With my brother and our two closest friends, we flew across the ice, thriving on the freedom of speed and the beauty of the sky.
My farewell skate that evening was much more than just the great expanse of ice, the sting of frozen toes, the laughter of close friends; it was a longing that somehow the magic of my New England childhood could always be gotten outside my parents' back door.
—Lisa Aciukewicz, Depot Road
The Ornament Game
It's Christmas Eve and we are sitting in a big circle. A child—or these days a grandchild—walks around with a basket and each person draws out a folded piece of paper with a number on it. There are some mutterings about the unfairness of always getting a bad number or exclamations of joy at having drawn the perfect, or near perfect, spot. And then the inevitable happens. A voice pipes up, "I forget how we do this."
We've been playing the Ornament Game for the past 30 years or so. It started out to be a fun holiday tradition and a way to build up an ornament collection for the kids to have when they were off on their own. The former impetus remains; the latter not so much as, in the name of creativity, many of the ornaments are downright ugly and in reality never make it to anyone's tree.
Shortly after Thanksgiving the names of everyone who will be at our home on Christmas Eve are put into a hat. Then each person draws a name. Again, there's a mix of protest and glee. "I got her last year." "He's too hard!" "Great, I have an idea already." The first rule of the game is that you need to buy an ornament that reflects the personality or an interest of the person whose name you drew. Over the years, we've had to get more and more creative. One son-in-law came up with the idea of "doctoring." And so began the tradition of adding or subtracting elements to a purchased ornament—the modification of a letter on a sports shirt, or the addition of a string of lights to a small red barn, or the repainting of hair color on a girl with skates. Rule two requires wrapping the ornament but not putting a name on it. Every year there's at least one last minute scramble to correct the "oops" on this rule. In the days—and minutes—before Christmas Eve packages are deposited in the traditional basket.
And then comes Christmas Eve and the annual discussion of whether we play The Game before or after dinner; several people are sure of the answer, but they don't agree. We settle the time once again. Gathered in our circle, numbers drawn, the inevitable question asked, it's time to review the rules. A number of voices begin to do this simultaneously and then someone yells, "Let grandma tell." And so I do. "The person who has number one chooses a package and opens it. Then number two opens one, and that person can either keep what was opened or swap it with number one. And we just follow in order, each person choosing to keep the package opened or swap with anyone who has gone before. You can't refuse a swap. And you can't swap for the ornament that you bought. As each person is deciding to keep or swap, everyone who has an opened ornament has to hold it up high so the chooser sees all the possibilities. Remember, the object of the game is to end up with an ornament for which you are pretty sure you know the intended receiver. (No wonder the game is hard to remember – it's hard to describe!) You don't want to keep an ornament because you like it—you want to trade for an ornament that you think 'belongs' to someone. Whoever is number one gets to make a final swap."
After the opening and the trading are over, it's time for the guessing. Number one holds up the ornament and makes a guess as to whom it is intended for. The person who purchased the ornament says yes or no. Then we move on to the second person, and so on. If the person has guessed correctly, that ornament is passed over to its new, and rightful, owner. A few guesses are always accompanied by, "Has this been doctored?" In the end, everyone has an ornament that is appropriate to him or her in some way—from the obvious to the obscure. And so will go another year of the Ornament Game.
—Carlene Phillips, Oak Hill Road