My favorite Christmas memory is of Christmas mornings after my family
had opened our gifts. What happened then is so precious to me, my
siblings, and our cousins that we talk about it to this day.
On our little strip of Route 22 outside of Peru, NY, my family, my
grandparents, and my aunt and uncle and their family had homes all in
a row on property that had originally been pasture land. My aunt was
my mother’s sister and my grandparents were their parents. Altogether
there were 14 of us and our three families had about five acres with
plenty of space between our houses for privacy. But we were all so
connected that we were always in and out of each other’s houses all
the time. There were well-worn paths from house to house, mostly
leading to back doors. Each of our families had huge vegetable gardens
and clotheslines in the back. My grandparents’ house was in the middle
and was the hub. My family’s lot was the largest with a baseball field
that we all, kids and adults, played on all summer long.
On Christmas morning, after each family had opened presents at home,
all 14 of us had breakfast together, with the location rotating yearly
among the three homes. The best part, though, was that everybody
stayed in their pajamas (the moms also wore their robes), and if it
wasn’t your year to host, you put on boots and threw a jacket over
your pajamas and trekked to the house of whoever was hosting. If there
was a lot of snow and we didn’t yet have a path cleared, the dads or
my grandfather, would go ahead to shovel the path. The trekkers
carried their gifts for everybody else and we had gift opening all
over again. There was lots of coffee for the adults, cocoa for the
kids, and the parents got busy cooking eggs and pancakes and bacon and
sausage and whatever else, maybe some fried potatoes or french toast.
Everybody got to eat pretty much what they wanted and we ate and
laughed and talked and played for hours, till somebody had to call it
quits because there were other families to get to later in the day.
Time to clean up, get dressed, and travel; for us, to someone on my
father’s side of the family. There were many options there, among my
father’s seven siblings and his parents.
One Christmas morning, when the breakfast was at my aunt’s house, I
ended up in the emergency room after being bit by their dog. I was
walking on the path around the back of their house, my arms full with
gifts. My sister and I were talking and laughing together as we went
around the house. The dog was tied up outside and something about our
silliness or movements, something, set him off and he leapt at me and
chomped on my left arm just as I was turning to try to get away from
him. He tore my jacket and pajamas and managed to sink his teeth into
my arm, so off we went to the emergency room. I didn’t need stitches
but I did need a tetanus shot. Thankfully, our ER visit was brief so
we were back home pretty quickly, ready for breakfast and presents!
I don’t recall when this tradition started, but I know it ended when I
was in high school, after my grandparents gave their house to my
mother’s younger brother. He had just gotten out of the army and
needed a place to live with his young family. My grandparents built a
new place about 10 miles away and we started a new tradition of
Christmas Eve at their house. They continued to be the hub. My
grandfather had built a rec room in the basement, so we all hung out
down there for snacks and drinks (soda or cider for us kids), and
opened presents and played pool. No pajamas, but still lots of family
love and goofiness. I’m not entirely sure why the breakfast tradition
ended when my uncle and his family moved in, but from my now adult
perspective I think it may have been because he was so much younger
than his older sisters, my mother and aunt, and he had been away in
the Army. His family did join us at my grandparents’ new house for the
new Christmas Eve tradition.
Boots and pajamas, no matter how cold or how much snow, and it seemed,
back then, that there was always plenty of snow. This extended family
breakfast tradition is what Christmas was all about for me.