One thing I love about the holiday season is that everyone has special traditions that they do for themselves or their families. My family has traditions for all sorts of holidays (including Groundhog’s Day, but that’s another story), but the ones around Christmas and New Year’s are my favorites.
I’ve spent almost every Christmas at my grandparents’ house in LA, which means I am not a white Christmas type of girl. In fact, one of my favorite traditions is going to the beach on Christmas Eve. My family will drive over to Seal Beach and spend time hanging out, collecting shells, braving the cold ocean water, and just generally enjoying the emptier winter beach. Afterwards we’ll walk around the little downtown and pop into shops we love–I particularly like the Temecula Olive Oil shop there (so many yummy treats to cook with)! We can also usually talk my dad into getting some ice cream from Coldstone which is always a win.
Christmas Eve in my family not only means a beach visit, but a trip to the bowling alley. I think this tradition started because my parents needed something to keep me and my sister busy the day before the real festivities and the local bowling alley was the only thing open. Since then we’ve gone almost every year–we get pitchers of beer and soda and fried pickles (my favorite) and fries and bowl a few games with everyone! This is pretty much the only time each year that I go bowling so I’ll generally try to convince someone that we need bumpers on one lane. (Don’t judge me, bowling isn’t fun if all you get are gutter balls!) I don’t ~love~ bowling (didn’t I just admit I only go once a year?) but I do love this tradition.
Of course, my favorite Christmas traditions involve cooking and baking. Ever since I was a small small child I’ve been baking sugarplum cookies with my aunt Heather and my sister. If you’ve never made or had sugarplums you’re seriously missing out! They’re very fun to make (it involves lots and lots of sprinkles) and delicious (though some in my family would disagree–they have bad taste). But the great part of this tradition is that every year my sister and I make these cookies with my aunt. And since my cousins were born they’ve joined us as well! So it turns into all of us rolling hot cookies in bowls of sprinkles and turning our hands red and green and making a giant, amazing sugary mess.
Finally, on Christmas morning the tradition is that my sister and I make breakfast with our aunt while everyone else sleeps (or pretends to). We bake a coffee cake and set out all the breads and coffee and mimosas (a recent addition) and wait for everyone else to be ready to open presents. Again, this is a tradition borne of necessity since my sister and I used to wake up ridiculously early and my aunt had to figure out a way to keep us occupied until it was acceptable to wake up the rest of the family. But it’s turned into such a great part of the day for me–a nice moment of quiet and baking before the loud fun begins. As a bonus, it means I can usually drink a few cups of coffee before everyone else gets there!
I hope you all have fun plans to visit people you love this season and get to continue your traditions (or make new ones)!
xoxo,
J
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