I grew up in a small Levitt tract house (1000-1200 sf, lr, kitchen, one bath, on a 60x120 lot) in central NJ. My main memory of that house was the winter warmth of heating pipes in the concrete pad underneath the linoleum floors and carpeting. I'm reminded of that because we stayed in a hotel in DC two weeks ago that had similar heating under the slate flooring in the bathroom...
My mother was a war bride from Wales, which contributed to our xmas traditions. We always put our fresh tree up during the day on xmas eve, then put up a cardboard fireplace in the living room so there would be a place to hang the stockings, and decorated the tree after supper. There was always a Lionel train set and a small village underneath the tree. Our parents put the gifts from our Welsh and American relatives plus Santa out after the kids went to bed. Xmas morning was always a skirmish between three kids sneaking around from 4 or 5 am on, and two parents trying to sleep.
The tree always stayed up until after new year's day. We never understood how neighbors could have trees out at the curb for collection before the new year. What was wrong with those people?
Years later, my family moved to Georgia, just north of Atlanta, and my wife and I would always drive down there, usually on xmas eve. For about 25 years, our xmas day tradition was a buying expedition to the big Oxford Books store in downtown Atlanta, which was always open.
When my present wife and I got together in 1990, her work schedule dictated that she take her main vacation over the xmas and new year holidays, so we started traveling to Europe and the Caribbean for two weeks each year. Several times we bought BMWs, picked them up a few days before xmas at the factory in Munich, and put a couple thousand miles on them traveling around and visiting friends, before dropping them off for shipment home.
Over the last 25 years, we've had some magical xmas experiences travelling -- native steel drum bands in the Caribbean wearing stocking caps and playing xmas songs on the beach; a magical snowy xmas eve service in the Lutheran cathedral in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany, when we were one of only three foreign couples in town, two American and one Japanese; and an absolutely other-worldly New Year's Eve in Rennes, Brittany, crammed into the city square so tight you couldn't move, with black-caped Breton dancers performing in what looked like a boxing ring surrounded by vertical jets of fire timed to the music. (Xmas Eve and Easter are the two times each year I will go to church with my wife if she wants me to.)
In recent years since my parents died, we've done our travelling a little earlier, leaving in early December and usually returning just before or on, xmas day (still a great day to travel). We get together with my brother and his wife, who live three miles away, here in Florida. This year, we're playing tennis on xmas morning, and then going to their house for dinner.
And as we do every year when we're at home, we have a quiet dinner out on New Year's Eve, and then host an all afternoon and evening New Year's Day brunch for 50-60 of our best friends. We go through at least two cases of American champagne (yes, I know the rules), always Gruet Blanc de Noirs from New Mexico (!), and I make at least 200 assorted savory and sweet crepes on that day. We finish up the champagne and a wee bit of Scotch with the stragglers around the fire pit on our lanai -- it's a great day. It's work, but it's worth it.
We don't do xmas presents as such, but when we travel, we always have an eye out for something special for each other. This year, we're doing something different -- taking our first ever cruise, 11 days down the Caribbean island chain, in mid-January. It remains to be seen whether we'll love it or hate it.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus, and may His Noodly Appendages bring you joy -- assuming you can get over all the crappy xmas music that's been playing everywhere since the first week of November.
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Christmas is funny is how it evolves as you age...you love it as a kid, loathe it as a teenager, usually spend it drunk as a young adult, you become a kid again once you have kids, and then finally you want grandkids so you can enjoy it all over again.
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