Christmas

Until a couple weeks before Christmas, Mr. Handsome admitted that he didn’t have any Christmas present ideas for me. We had decided not to get each other anything big, but we each still wanted to put something under the tree for the other person.

Mr. Handsome knows that I like gifts that are thoughtful, useful, sentimental, or homemade. I’m not one to get super excited over something big and shiny unless it’s in one of those four categories. With that in mind, he came up with a wonderful present.

Somehow, without me knowing it, he managed to smuggle a tree stump home from Bible study. We had driven his truck that week, so he slipped it in the back while I was chatting, and I had no idea. He used it to make a wooden fruit bowl.

The best part was that Mr. Handsome and Little Buddy did most of the project together. Of course Little Buddy didn’t use any of Daddy’s tools, but he watched the process and “worked” with his plastic tools on pieces of scrap wood. He did come inside while the saws were running, but he was eager to get right back to work when they turned off.

From Mr. Handsome…

If someone told you that one of their Christmas traditions was eating pizza on Christmas Eve, what would you think? I’ll admit that it sounds a bit underwhelming. Maybe they burned their Christmas ham a few years in a row and ended up ordering pizza anyway, so they eventually decided to just forget the ham and go straight to the pizza.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I ate pizza every Christmas Eve as a child. My parents still serve it to this day.

We didn’t buy it from the freezer section at the grocery store or order it from a restaurant. No, this was homemade, completely from scratch. We called it shepherd’s pie. I’m not sure why. True shepherd’s pie is a casserole with meat, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and cheese. But for some reason, on Christmas Eve, pizza became shepherd’s pie for us. I suppose family traditions don’t have to make sense.

As my siblings and I grew, we started helping with dinner. By the time we were teenagers, we were making it entirely by ourselves. We improved our techniques each year, and the pizza got better and better. After trying my uncle’s lasagna, we switched out the canned pizza sauce for his secret tomato sauce recipe. After trying Chicago style pizza, we started experimenting with deep dish.

When I met Ellie, I was horrified to learn that she liked a bizarre, newfangled concoction of toppings known as “Hawaiian.” I couldn’t imagine putting ham (or Canadian bacon) and pineapple on pizza. “I’m dating a hippie,” I thought. But to impress Ellie on the first Christmas she spent with my family, I put some pineapple and ham on a pizza, and lo and behold, it actually tasted pretty good.

We have been quarantining since a week before the baby was born, to avoid all the COVID and flu germs going around, so we didn’t see my family for Christmas. My mother was kind enough to prepare some homemade pizzas for us and freeze them. We cooked them in the oven, and they tasted delicious.

Do you have any unusual Christmas (or any other holiday) traditions?

I think I have officially crossed the line into becoming a boring adult: I spent Christmas Eve assembling a build-it-yourself children’s toy.

I know my parents did the same thing when I was a child. I could hear them in the basement late into the night putting together our Christmas gifts. Mr. Handsome’s parents did the same. (Did yours?)

I just never realized that someday that would be me.

It happened so innocently. I thought it would be fun to give Little Buddy a grocery store checkout station because he loves playing pretend with his plastic food and kitchen. He would then have the complete experience: a truck to drive to the store, a grocery cart to shop, a supermarket checkout station to purchase the food, and a kitchen to cook in.

I started assembling the kit a week early, thinking that would give me plenty of time, but as things always go, it took much longer than I thought. I also admit that I procrastinated more than I had planned, although I guess that’s the definitely of procrastination.

By Christmas Eve, it still sat unfinished, so after Little Buddy went to bed, we put on a Christmas movie (Do you agree with Mr. Handsome that The Sound of Music is a Christmas movie?) and worked on the project.

It was all worth it when, on Christmas morning, Little Buddy came running down the stairs, laughing and shouting about the new toy. He immediately started stacking toy food into his grocery cart and taking it to the checkout line.

How many of you stayed up late assembling Christmas toys?

One of my readers suggested I write a post about the man in the red suit. In the United States, the vast majority of preschoolers believe in Santa Claus, although most kids stop believing by mid-elementary school. As young children, my older brother and I were among that group.

On Christmas morning, we each came downstairs to find a big, unwrapped gift under the tree that was from Santa, as well as a few smaller, wrapped gifts from our parents. On Easter, the Easter Bunny hid a basket for each of us to find. And when we lost teeth, the Tooth Fairy left a few quarters under our pillows.

I distinctly remember the day when my brother told me the truth about Santa, when I was about eight years old. We were driving in the car, and I remember exactly where we were. “Does that mean the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real either?” I asked. His response made me cry.

Mr. Handsome grew up being told that the Wise Men came on camels and left gifts under the tree. On Christmas Eve, his dad stomped around on their roof. “The camels are here!” his mom would say. “You have to go to bed, or they won’t bring presents.”

Having come from two different backgrounds, Mr. Handsome and I are faced with a big decision: What will we tell our children? Little Buddy was still too young to understand who brought his gifts this Christmas, but we’ve decided not to do Santa Claus or the Wise Men. Before I explain why, I want to start by saying that I have absolutely nothing against parents who hold to either tradition.

For me, the biggest reason is that I don’t want to risk confusing my kids. And while I don’t necessarily think that I trusted my parents any less when I found out the truth about Santa, but it’s more about my perspective as a mom. Even with a young toddler, I always strive to keep my word. I try not to make promises to Little Buddy that I can’t keep.

I do want Christmas to be a magical time for our children, and I plan on starting some fun Christmas traditions for our family, perhaps as soon as next year. Do you have any suggestions? I would also love to hear your thoughts on Santa Claus.

To help counteract the financial strain that has been put on small businesses over the past eight months, we have been doing our part this Christmas season. We have really been trying to buy gifts from local vendors.

In the age of Amazon, it’s so easy to purchase gifts from large retailers and send them with the click of a button. We admit that we do use Amazon (quite a bit, actually), and it’s a wonderful convenience, but when it comes to selecting meaningful presents for family and friends, we would rather give our money to small business in Tennessee.

Have you been shopping locally this Christmas season?