HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
The main holiday tradition in our house now that our children are grown and we are retired, is the Christmas Dinner, usually served around 2:00 p.m. on Christmas Day.
MENU: Roast Turkey, with roast potatoes and whole carrots, roasted around the turkey. Then there are the side dishes of dressing (or stuffing), green bean casserole, marshmallowed sweet potatoes and cranberry/raspberry jello salad. Then the most important item of all -- the gravy! My husband's Grandmother taught me to make this and it is an absolute must with any roast dinner.
Dessert -- a little later comes Tollhouse cookie chocolate chip brownies - -- again a 'must' at Christmas and Thanksgiving. If that is too much sugar, there are also Harry and David pears, sent to us every year by a favorite friend of ours from our church.
At least one of our two sons and their girlfriend/wife will join us. In this photo, son #2 from Boise, managed to include himself in the photo because of the mirror in the background.
There is another tradition at Christmas at our house, because Christmas Day is also my birthday.
You can see my birthday cards on the hutch.
In this photo you can see our 'Charlie Brown' Christmas Tree, which is actually quite pretty this year, the mirror behind it enhancing the lights. Gone are the days of 7 foot Christmas trees! After 54 years of decorating the tree we not only down sized our house but also our tree and decorations. My birthday cards can be seen to the right of the tree. I turned 76 this year and I received 16 birthday cards!
Another tradition we used to have was that of including a chocolate birthday cake for me, but in the end we had so much food it just seemed unnecessary, so we haven't done this for about the last ten years.
However, all of these celebrations are preceded by the Christmas Eve Service at the Carlsbad Community Church, where my husband served as pastor for 28 years before retiring in 2001.
These are just some of the traditions at our house at Christmas. There are more traditions that are important to other people, to be seen by visiting FRIDAY, MY TOWN SHOOT-OUT. You can easily visit by just clicking HERE.
14 comments:
A belated "Happy Birthday" Chris. It looks as though you all had a wonderful double celebration!
It's nice to have a double reason for a celebration. But now you must share with us that gravy recipe! :D
Mersad
Mersad Donko Photography
Belated happy birthday Chris. I was 76 the day before Thanksgiving. Your menu was similar to mine except for the turkey as we had country ham cured in Ky. Love that photo with your son in the mirror.
Happy New Year.
Lovely warm family traditions! I always feel a little bad for late December birthdays; you guys can't fully enjoy your chocolate cake, can you? Oh well, Christmas a fantastic time to celebrate it all:)
Wonderful traditions and pictures, Chris. You home looks so lovely. Your dinner looks so good, I was hoping you saved a place for me. HaHa.
I didn't realize your hubby was Pastor of the church for 28 years before retiring...something else we have in common. We were at the First Baptist Church of Hughson (Northern Ca) for 27 before retiring. Good ministries all the way around.
BTW Happy Birthday!!!
you are all in summer clothes.
Hope you had a great double celebration, Chris. Your Christmas table looks lovely and that mirror is a good way to have even the photographer included in the shot.
Beautiful photo! Since we missed out on turkey dinner this year, perhaps you would make me one, when I come to visit?? It looks and sounds delicious! I know I sent you a birthday card, but was a little indisposed on the actual day and forgot. So a belated "Happy Birthday to you" πΆππππ
Very nice post, Chris !
Awww, you're a Christmas baby - how cool is that?! Happy Birthday.
Merry (belated) Christmas. I enjoyed the description of the menu and your history and current Christmas traditions. Camillo and I had also downsized our holidays, both gifting and food. This year at home with my daughter and grands we did a gift exchange and a brunch and it seemed so large to me; then everyone dispersed to girlfriends/boyfriends/other grandparents homes.
I saw your comment on Peggy's post - the topic descriptions are intentionally broad, with all our worldwide cultures and age groups we don't want to sound narrowly American in our topics. The holidays has almost always ended up being about family traditions - that is what we all take photo of. May your New Year be a happy one. see you next week.
Oh I love your traditions and all the goodies you talked about.
Sorry I missed your birthday so here is a belated wish.
I'm finally catching up on all the posts.
Love the photo of you and your family.
Happy birthday, sorry I am a bit late, I don't get around to blogs over the holidays.
happy belated birthday! Love your little tree. We went small also, the last few years since we sold the big house and moved. I had two small artificial table top trees with white lights.
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