Holiday Traditions—We Create Our Family Culture

Holiday Traditions—We Create Our Family Culture

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My father, who dreaded Christmas, was happy to turn all the Christmas chores over to me, his elder daughter. I was a motherless girl. We lived far from the possible help of cousins, aunts and uncles. The first time Dad took me to the store to buy Christmas presents, I was seven years old. I had to choose gifts for everybody, including myself. So much for Santa.

I was in charge of everything. Decorating the tree meant I perched precariously atop a ladder. I placed the ornaments and layered on tinsel until the tree shimmered with silver. I was a little tyrant. I insisted that each strand be pulled out of its cardboard holder one by one and placed evenly over the branches. If I had to do the job it was going to be done my way, the right way. I stayed up late nights struggling with gift wrap, tape and curly ribbon. I kept the list and wrote a personal note in each Christmas card and addressed the envelopes. For days my fingers were smudged with ink.

As time goes by we change our family patterns. We move. Children marry. Babies are born. People die. The good news is that we replace old ways with new practices, some of which stick year after year, becoming tradition. Like me, my children also spent their holidays far from extended family. Unlike me, my kids never had to shop for their own presents. In an unspoken family agreement, we keep the myth of Santa alive. Ask them. To this day they will tell you, “Of course, Santa lives at the North Pole with his elves, busily making toys in his workshop. He’ll be coming down the chimney Christmas Eve. He’ll want his glass of milk and plate of cookies.”

Our family Christmas trees have not always been traditional. Sure, we decorated the usual cedar, pine or fir; then one year a naked Alder branch, and another year, a gigantic tumbleweed. In search of the perfect tree, we tromped through the woods, ax in hand, or drove to the Christmas tree farm. Other years we picked trees from the Boy Scout lot on the corner. All were glorious. Perfect, no. I lost my need for perfection somewhere along the way. Each child decorated the branches he or she could reach in a rather random way, tossing on handfuls of tinsel. The bottom of the tree was every bit as wonderful as Mom’s precise branches at the top. One lean year, our tree was a construction paper cutout my son had made in Head Start. For decorations he had pasted on confetti-like bits. I treasured that tree. After my son was married, I gave it to him. He still has that faded tree, and in the tradition we began years ago, tapes it to his refrigerator door every Christmas season.

Once my children were grown and on their own, I enjoyed dipping into our family past at our holiday celebrations. I gathered my adult kids around me and read to them their favorite childhood nursery rhymes from Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” and Kipling’s “The Elephant’s Child”. I have made sure my grandchildren have their own copies of these treasured books.

Even when I could, I never heaped gifts beneath our tree. But each child always had a gift Santa had left on his midnight run through the heavens, usually a much-desired toy. And a gift or two from Mom, always including clothing and some item I had made myself. The paper and ribbon were never perfectly done. Today my children are as apt as I am to wrap gifts in newsprint or brown paper bags decorated with crayons.

Our most memorable Christmas, the time I chose the very best gifts, was the year I sorted through my boxes of photographs and divided them into piles for each of my children, now adults with partners. I purchased albums and photo file boxes for each, put all this into larger boxes, wrapped them and placed them beneath the tree. When assembled for breakfast, I read those old favorite stories. Then we opened our presents. My kids spent the entire rest of the day sharing their photos. “Remember the day this was taken?” And “Oh, I’d forgotten about that.” Or “Look at the expression on my face.” Each picture triggered recollections. They especially loved their baby pictures, which gave me a chance to tell them about times they were too young to remember.

We are now scattered to different parts of the country. But I know each of my children carry on those family traditions that they loved most, blend these with the customs generated from their spouses’ families, and create their new customs along the way, continually building a living family culture.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
December 1, 2011

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Over the mountains and ’cross the plains, to Grandmother’s house we go

The house feels so empty now she's gone!

Over the mountains and ’cross the plains, to Grandmother’s house we go

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My granddaughter Jessica is visiting this week, her first visit to Grandma’s Montana house and her first train trip. She rode the Empire Builder from Seattle . Jess is eighteen, in love, and planning a wedding.



When Jess was eight she lived with me for two months. Her mother, a Red Cross Emergency specialist, slogged through the pile in New York City counseling rescue workers after the Towers went down. Jess’s best friend Clarisse lived a short run down the path through the woods, so I generally had two girls who kept each other entertained. If it was quiet at my house, they were off terrorizing Clarisse’s little brothers.



One nice thing about my grandchildren is that I am able to have a more relaxed relationship than I had with their parents. Parenting comes with a burdensome weight of responsibility. I have come to believe that we parents suffer the blood, sweat and tears of raising our children so we can have fun with theirs. It means we get to spoil them. It means we let them get away with things we wouldn’t have dreamed of tolerating from their parents. We can sympathize with the little buggers when their parents are being “mean”. “You want me to spank Mommy for you?” I ask. Her little lip quivers. “Yes,” she says. Then we both burst out laughing.



Grandchildren are fun. Last summer I spent three weeks taking care of Lexi, my son’s three-year old. She and I had a great time. Our days usually consisted of a walk to the park, two hours on the swings, numerous snacks, dressing dolls (I dressed them and Lexi undressed them), playing in the sandbox, riding the trike, an hour on the tube with “Dinosaur Train”, unnumbered hours of “The Little Mermaid”, M&M’s whenever she wanted them, and best of all, jumping on Grandma’s bed and reading books. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. (With my grandkids I can be silly in a way I could not have been with my own children at the time I was raising them.)



I haven’t been able to as spend much alone time with Jess’s sister Toni. Her mother has always been there to spoil the fun. Toni at five, has a lively imagination. When she was born I flew to Japan to spend a month helping her mother take care of her. We took turns walking the floor with Toni bundled in our arms while she made up her mind whether to stay and play or leave us all too soon. Today she is a whirlwind of energy and a budding entomologist.



Before Jess arrived I had planned a week of activities. We haven’t crossed many items off my long list of possibilities. Remember, Jess is eighteen. In my experience, when my own children came of age, teenage, that is, they either vanished or were otherwise vacant. Out with friends. In their room, door closed. On the phone. Down the street. Any activity which did not include Mom.



Mostly Jess and I just hang out. I go about my own business. Jess spends a lot of time in my backyard garden, or playing with the cats, or in her room, apparently quite content. We spent hours at the Sally Ann in Havre one day and then drove to Chinook where we poked around in Goodies Galore for another hour. (Jess and I share a delight in second-hand stores.) We went for ice cream. We hauled groceries home. She worked with me in the shop.



This morning we picked strawberries. She helped me wrap nets around the Saskatoon berries and the currant bushes in hopes of keeping the robins away long enough for me to get a harvest. We sat beneath the poplar trees and watched the clouds move in. This afternoon, if it doesn’t rain too hard, we will drive out Wayne Creek Road and hunt agates and other pretty rocks.



Jess and Marcus plan to be married in October, when he has finished with his Navy schooling. The time apart from him has been hard for her. Once they are married, she will get to go with him, as long as he is stationed Stateside. Meanwhile, she and her beau spend every possible sweet moment on the phone. I wish them the best. I am glad I got to spend this week with her. I’ll miss her when she is gone. I like Marcus. Maybe next year they both will visit Grandma. Great-Grandma? Not for a while, I hope.



Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 14, 2011
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Christmas Shopping in Guadalajara

Christmas Shopping in Guadalajara
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Evelyn, my new friend from Harlem— Harlem , New York , that is—searched the palapa huts on the beach at Mazatlan until she found us. “There is a shopping tour bus to Guadalajara every Thursday. What do you think?” Kathy and I perked up. “We leave at night, shop all day and return home the following night. It costs only five hundred pesos for the bus. And there will be a tour guide.”



We were an easy sell. We’d landed in Mazatlan exhausted and had done virtually nothing but lounge on the beach, stare at the waves and eat shrimp in the two weeks since we’d arrived. A trip to Guadalajara sounded exciting. We’d get an overview of the city and would know if we’d like to spend time there. For a seven hour trip by bus, the price was exceptional.



When Kathy’s husband Richard arrived on Sunday, as tired and ready for a rest as we had been, we surprised him with the trip, already pre-paid. He raised his eyebrows at us, but went along with our plans. None of us knew quite what we had bought but we were ready for the adventure.



Thursday night at eight we queued up, handed over our bags for inspection by the policia, were given our itinerary and a sack lunch and boarded the bus, one of several heading to the same destination. We were the only Gringos on the bus. Our tour guide, Guillermo, spoke for several minutes. About the trip. I guess. Next year we are determined to arrive in Mexico with a bigger Spanglish vocabulary.



Fortunately, o ur itinerary was printed in both languages. The first stop was Medrano Street from 3 to 8 am. “It is a flea market where you can find all kind of clothes. Be careful of your purse. Because in this season is really crowded.” Guillermo made a ten minute speech at the front of the bus, then indicated to us with gestures at his watch, that we should be back to the bus at 8 am. Oh, and be careful of our purses.



What in the world were we going to do for five hours in the middle of the night at a flea market! Explore, that’s what. We agreed to stay together. It was body to body crowded. A shoppers Mecca , the market sprawled over several streets. Stalls, stands and shops jammed with shirts, shorts, shoes, purses, jewelry, electronics, bedding, you name it. We wandered through the press of people. The atmosphere was like a carnival. We soon split up, each going in whatever direction interested us. Oh, my, the food stalls—the most exceptional baked goods in the world. When it was almost time to leave, we couldn’t find Richard. We nearly panicked and went on the search. With relief we finally spotted him. A tall Gringo did not move through this pack of people unnoticed. We had to go. I was just getting oriented and ready to shop. I comforted myself with plans to return next year; I would go armed with a list.



And thus we ate and shopped our way through Guadalajara , always with Guillermo looking out for us, to make sure we knew when to re-board the bus. We stopped at shopping centers, upscale malls which could have been anywhere in the world, a denim market, arts and crafts markets, and ended up at the huge San Juan de Dios Market, footsore, weary, and happy. We all agreed that shopping Guadalajara deserved several days, with the first stop the flea market. I noticed that Richard was rather quiet through this discussion. The cliché, deer in the headlights, comes to mind. But we intend to also browse through the museums and galleries, photograph the stunning architecture and tour the countryside. It is not all about shopping!



When we boarded the bus for home about twenty extra people crowded in, standing in the aisles. That is, twenty extra people with muy huge bags of plunder. We hardly had room to breathe. One bus had broken down. We swayed through the town for about an hour to a central bus station where a replacement bus awaited. It took some time to redistribute people and bags. On the way again, our driver strived manfully to make up time. We charged and roared through the countryside. About an hour north of Nayarit, our bus gave out, coughed its last fume and died by the side of the road. The driver and Guillermo climbed over the engine, wrenches in hand, to no avail. The policia soon arrived and sat guarding the bus. That’s when I realized there were hundreds of thousands of pesos worth of goods on board, most of it for Christmas.



It was full daylight before another bus putt-putted up to rescue us and carry us back to Mazatlan . During this entire venture, everybody was patient, polite, and cheerful. I never heard one word spoken in anger, not one whine, not one display of impatience. Buses break down. It happens. Will we go again? You bet. Will Richard go again? Maybe not. Maybe he will stay on the beach, in the shade of a coconut palm, reading a book and sipping a cerveza. But Kathy, Evelyn and I are making our lists and checking them twice.



Sondra Ashton

Havre Daily News: Looking out my back door

December23, 2010
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