A Look At Christmas Family Traditions And Lasting Memories

When you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you’ll find you’ve created family traditions and lasting memories.

Things have been crazy this last week. I went to Target on Friday, Dec. 22. I thought Southpark Meadows was busy when a holiday wasn’t three days away. I was wrong.

As an added bonus, I was once again reminded I live in Texas. How you might ask? When I walked into the store, it was 52 degrees outside. Forty-five minutes later, when I walked out, it was forty-eight degrees with a wind chill of what felt like ‘thirty-two degrees.’

In my house, you know it’s Christmas Eve when my grandfather disappears with the car for five hours. I always know it’s Christmas Eve because he always returns with a request. ‘Will you wrap your grandmother’s Christmas present?’ Yes, he goes Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. My aunt and I think he’s either brave or insane, perhaps both, but it’s his tradition.

Traditions have to be my favorite and sometimes, least favorite part of the holidays. I don’t look forward to the stress of having to find the perfect gift for everybody or making Christmas sneeze or vomit on and/or in my house. My family has tons of traditions; most of Christmas Eve is spent playing board games while Christmas music or movies are playing in the background. When I was a kid, we’d go out and look at Christmas lights for a few hours. But I think my favorite holiday tradition started about five years ago.

I’d just moved to Austin that August to attend school at Texas State. It was Christmas Eve; the weather outside was…well, honestly, I don’t remember what it was like. But I was sitting in my room as my aunt and I were the only two people awake in the house. It was about 11 PM when she poked her head into my room and informed me she wanted something sweet. All she had to say was the word “cookies,” and I was onboard. So, off we went.

I’m not sure which is more frightening: the fact that we didn’t consider every store was closed or the fact that Walmart was open on Christmas Eve till Midnight. I can’t tell you how long we searched the holiday section looking for some festive holiday cookie cutters. We were going to go all out. We finally managed to find this little copper and honestly pathetic excuse for a box of cookie cutters. It was probably for the best it only had three cookie cutters in it: a stocking, a Santa hat and a candle.

As long as it took us to find the supplies, it took even longer to make the cookies. We filed into our open concept living, which was currently serving as a guest room for my brothers, and kitchen area with our bag of goodies and set to work. It was not the house from the Night Before Christmas after that.

For three hours, the kitchen light shone into the living room, the oven beeped on and off and my aunt and I chatted while adding homemade and holiday colored frosting onto our homemade sugar cookies.

Walmart doesn’t stay open as late it did that year, but we still find ourselves with that craving every year. And if we don’t, someone else in the family does! They may have complained the following morning about the noise, but they didn’t complain about the cookies they were devouring. 

As stores have started to close earlier on Christmas Eve, we’ve had to plan ahead for the demand and cravings. And while we’ve occasionally cheated with store bought frosting, holiday cookies became a new holiday tradition—the hour of activity included.

Who needs pie when you have homemade frosted sugar cookies? And they weren’t extra delicious just because it meant we’d kept my brothers up most of the night with us. But honestly, they were delicious, and sugar cookies and frosting are two of my least favorite confectionary items.

Of course, our holiday cookie tradition eventually turned into a holiday treat tradition. We’ve expanded our festive bakeware to include a silicon Christmas tree cake mold, a gingerbread man cake pan and at least 25 different holiday cookie cutters. We’ve included holiday themed homemade rice crispy treats and even a year of mini apple pies.

My aunt and I weren’t together on Christmas Eve this year, and we won’t be on New Year’s either. But I still found myself upholding the tradition all the same. And I am happy to say the homemade rice crispy treats were a huge hit with family and friends!

It’s been a great year, and the new one is just around the corner. If we’re lucky, we’ll all make a few new traditions, and perhaps a few old ones will change. I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

Corridor News has a few traditions of its own, like delivering local news 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So, from our family to yours, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and many more great traditions.

Because the goodwill of those we serve is the foundation of our success, it’s a real pleasure at this holiday time to say thank you as we wish you a full year of happiness and success.

Happy Holidays and warm wishes for 2018!

Terra Rivers, Managing Editor