More Christmas traditions I can't go without:
- We have a family Christmas party the Saturday before Christmas. It is an enormous party, with my mom's entire extended family, mostly from her dad's side. We rent out the Boys and Girls Club building in Imperial Beach, CA, which isn't difficult considering my grandpa's name is on the building. It is the J. D. Webb Boys and Girls Club. He built it, through his construction company — he's really quite famous down in IB. Anyway, we rent out that building and everyone comes from all over Southern California. My mom's uncle and his family come from Arizona. We always have Mexican food — burritos, tacos, tamales, enchiladas — and lots of desserts. Everyone brings something, or two or three things. It is an incredible feast that I would never miss for the world. We all dress up really nicely, too. (When we were young, our Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa were brand-new outfits for the Christmas party, so we got to open them early! That was awesome. Then we grew up and decided we could pick out our own clothes. . . you know how it is.) We pray before the meal and then everyone lines up in a buffet line and gets heaping plates of food. We chat, laugh, enjoy each others' company and catching up with people we haven't seen since the Fourth of July (when we have our other enormous family party). My grandparents hire a DJ —because we're a family that knows how to party. Everyone gets out on the dance floor and we dance, eat, dance, and eat some more for hours. The only part my siblings, cousins, and I don't like is the cleanup. This is one of my favorite nights.
- We spend Christmas day as a family. We get up when Madelyn can't wait any longer. Somehow she always gets up early and then goes from room to room waking everyone else. We aren't allowed to even think of getting up until after 7am, which has been moved to 7:30 in recent years. But Madelyn is always the one to wake all of us. We go brush our teeth and make ourselves as presentable as possible (since we are all still in our pj's without makeup. . . a near tragedy for a house full of girls) and pose at the top of the stairs for a picture. Madelyn always makes sure to capture the cat and hold his squirming, meowing body during the picture. Then we rush downstairs and converge on our Christmas tree, pulling out presents and handing them to their recipients. After all the presents are open and everyone has given hugs and 'thank yous' and 'you're welcomes' we have a big breakfast together. Sometimes Jerry makes waffles or pancakes and other times Mom makes her special homemade crème brulée French toast. We usually have sausage and eggs with our breakfast. Jerry makes our eggs special order — I get scrambled with cheese, Madelyn gets over-easy, Brooke gets over-medium, etc. We have a wonderful breakfast and wonderful day, listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies. This is one of my favorite days.
Christmastime, it's here!
<3 Mel
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