By: Megha Parikh
As the holiday season rolls around, I can’t help but get excited about what’s to come: family time and snow. Every family celebrates the holidays in different ways, but here are some of my family’s holiday traditions.
ONE (partridge in a pear tree): Christmas Eve Eve Dinner
To start the festivities, we go to my aunt’s house for a classic Christmas Eve Eve dinner. She usually makes homemade enchiladas for dinner, but my favorite part has to be the dessert. From smores cake to Oreo truffles, my aunt is a dessert master. During this gathering, we play so many games with my three little cousins. My aunt sets up an advent calendar for my younger cousins and on Christmas Eve Eve, it’s always me and my sister going over to their house to play games with them. Some of my favorite games are the ‘Minute to Win it’ type games. I’ve put a few below.
Shake It: to set this game up, you’ll need a box, belt, and ping pong balls. Cut a hole in the box, and two slits on the sides. Feed the belt through the slits and have the hole in the box face up. Tie the belt around someone’s waist with the box on their bum. Put the ping pong balls in the box. When the timer starts, tell them to jump around to get all the ping pong balls out of the box. The person with the shortest time wins!
Oreo: take an Oreo and set it on everyone's forehead. Without using their hands, everyone needs to get the cookie into their mouths and eat it! First one to eat the cookie wins, although everyone’s a winner if they get to eat the Oreo!
Dice: to prepare this game, everyone needs to pair up. Each pair gets 8 dice, with each person getting 4. The goal of the game is to stack your 4 dice on your partner's forehead, while they are doing the same thing on your forehead. This game takes a lot of patience, teamwork, and family bonding (and the occasional yell!).
TWO (turtle doves): Christmas Eve Morning
After the dinner, games, and dessert is finished, my mom, dad, sister, and I head back home and get a good night’s rest before waking up on Christmas Eve. When we wake up, my sister and I get all the fun activities for our cousins prepared. All the while, my mom and dad are preparing the house with decorations.
THREE (french hens): Christmas Eve Afternoon
Once everything’s ready, my mom gives my aunt the thumbs up to start driving over. This means the holiday season is about to get real joyful. My cousins come over and off we go with the festivities and fun activities. I’ve put my top three (french hens) below:
Ugly Christmas Sweaters: after setting up a huge table full of arts and crafts materials like pom poms, bows, stickers, and pipe cleaners, we all make our own ugly Christmas sweaters!
Homemade Ornaments: every year my sister and I bring out a homemade paper Christmas tree. It’s bare, though, and each year we cut out circles on different colored construction paper so we can all decorate them. We take turns putting our final ornaments on the tree and decide who gets to put the star on the tree. Before we bring the finished tree upstairs, we make sure the ornaments are taped on. After we bring the tree upstairs from the basement and tape it on the wall, we have a grand reveal to the parents and put on the star!
Gingerbread House: one of our favorite activities that brings the whole family together, kids and adults alike, is a gingerbread-making contest. We make teams totally randomly, and designate some people to be the judges. Sometimes, we’ll put the pictures of the gingerbread houses on my mom’s Facebook and let her friends decide.
FOUR (calling birds): Christmas Eve Night
After we finish the festivities, we get ready for a lovely eggplant parmesan dinner. We’ll either eat before, during, or after a holiday movie. Regardless, we always make time to make fresh cookies, eat a few, and leave the rest for Santa. We then change into our matching pajamas (because why not?) and then, it’s off to bed to wait for Santa. The cousins always sleep in the same room and even sometimes make a pillow fort to sleep under.
FIVE (golden rings): Christmas Morning
Although we went to bed, the cousins were never able to fall asleep because of excitement. However, since the parents stay up late, they put a wake up time of 7am on the cousins. This is so the parents can have some sleep and can be ready to record all our faces when we see all the goodies Santa’s left us. After we open up presents and give our round of hugs to each family member, we eat our staple Christmas morning breakfast: french toast casserole. We then say our goodbyes and start to break down the house from all the holiday decorations. Sometimes we’ll even make a quick trip to Starbucks for a cozy hot chocolate.
These traditions are my favorite because of the quality time it gives me to spend with my family. I’ll forever cherish these moments. Throughout it all, my family continues to bring the holiday spirit, and I can’t wait for winter break to come! I wish you and your loved ones a fantastic holiday season filled with love, joy, and merriment! Happy Holidays!