Whether whipping up homemade eggnog or hanging some mistletoe, family traditions revive our Christmas spirit every year and put a little jingle in our snow boots. In our family we’ve noticed that what began as an after-thought now has become a regular staple during the holidays and set the tone for the “most wonderful time of the year.” While they may be called rituals by some and indulgences by others, our Christmas traditions help us to keep things light and take our minds off our worldly stresses.
I got the snow shovel out for this podcast and dug up a few of my all-time favorite Christmas traditions. These ten tidings are doozies! For a few of them, you’re going to need some outright pluck and daring because, admittedly, most of them are attention seeking and narcissistic. And, if I was honest, the world could probably do without any of them, but what’s the fun in that?
We are to be reminded that Christmas is supposed to bring out the child in us. After all, Christmas is about a child, Jesus, who came into the world pure as snow, and taught us all about a truth, one that could help us start fresh every day. The challenges Joseph and Mary faced as parents back in the day was serious stuff, but what gladness they must have felt knowing that on that shivery night of their son’s birth, the whole earth was sleeping under a new clean blanket of grace and hope.
If Jesus was five years old and knocked on my door this Christmas morning, I think he might come in and have some fun with the Ten Tidings I’m offering you here, and would no doubt have a few of his own. Here we go…
TIDING #1: If you have a message on your phone, or land line, change the message to a Christmas verse that you make up. My singing leaves a lot to be desired, and I generally ruin Christmas songs as soon as I open my mouth, but my off-tune singing can be funny. See what you think. Call my number, (812) 479-8264 and listen to the message. It may make you cringe…or put a Christmas song in your heart for the day. Your choice.
TIDING #2: Make huge pancakes on Christmas morning. They will be hilarious when you put them on someone’s plate. When I was camping one summer in Wyoming, we made pancakes as big as a frying pan and challenged each other to try to flip them over in one fell swoop. Pancakes are one of those versatile foods that will make you smile like a happy face. I like to put fake candy fried eggs in the middle of mine, or fig newtons in the batter, then add copious amounts of whip cream on top. Bring it on, then serve them up as if you are dead serious about pancakes!
TIDING #3: The very best present you can give anyone during the holiday season is your good cheer. Bundle up at night and spread tons of joy around by loading up your car with kids and singing Christmas carols at the top of your lungs. Roll down your windows, let the cold hit you in the face, and open the throttle on that stereo! It’s time to bring out that private shower voice you’ve been hiding all these years and rock your neighborhood!
TIDING #4: Order a set of matching Christmas pajamas for everyone in your family and go to Starbucks together for a late evening hot chocolate. There’s something magical, possibly weird, about a family dressing in the same outfit and walking into a coffee shop. It looks like they just finished the curtain call in some sort of theatrical play. So, ask for a double helping of those tiny marshmallows in your pj’s. If you get some awkward stares, become theatrical and belt out a dramatic line like, “God Bless Us Everyone!”
TIDING #5: This is one of my all-time favorites. Buy a couple of dozen fake snowballs and have a strategically planned snowball fight in your house on Christmas morning. We have done it every year for ages and every year something gets broken, or someone gets hit in the face with a snowball. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. It’s like getting hit with a large cotton ball.
TIDING #6: I couldn’t make a list without including something from my favorite Christmas movie, Elf. Try this: Get everyone in front of the big screen and in slow motion, play the snowball fight Elf has with a gang of bullies in Central Park. Just when Buddy is about to make that incredible throw and nail the fleeing bully, pause the TV and have everyone put their post-it on the TV with the name of a bully written down on it. When you hit play and Elf lets that snowball fly, have everyone scream "TAKE THAT, YOU COTTON-HEADED NIMMYMUGGIN!"
TIDING #7: Give a cherry pit pack to someone. This is without a doubt the best gift I have ever given. People love them. A cherry pit pack is a small cloth pillow filled with cherry pits that you can nuke in the microwave. The oil in the cherry pits stay warm for at least an hour and is so comforting you’ll feel like you are in a Norwegian spa. I began using mine to warm the bottom of my bed in the winter. My feet love it.
TIDING #8: Wear an oversized Christmas band aid on your forehead with holly or bells on it, and when people ask what happened tell them you ran into a reindeer. If they laugh, pull out a Christmas band aid and give it to their kid. They’ll feel healed immediately. (You can even order ones that look like strips of bacon).
TIDING #9: Remember this line? “‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…” When you read that classic holiday poem, change one of the lines and see if anyone catches it. When I was a kid, my dad used to say, “Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw out the trash.” We lay there in bed and knew that when Dad delivered that line it would be wrong, but we laughed every time he said it, and couldn’t wait to hear it again, and again.
TIDING #10: Make a Grinch Pie with one of your kids! Here’s what you do. Go to the grocery store and buy twenty dollars of the most disgusting food items you can find. Look for items like pig knuckles, canned tongues, or green slime Jell-O. There’s plenty of revolting items to choose from so just make it up as you go along. When I make a Grinch pie with my grandsons, we always throw in a dirty sock and add some yard debris, but that’s just us. Then for the coup’ de grace, dump the gloppy mixture into a pie crust, and present it to someone you don’t like, but really like a lot. As they try to thank you, give them a real present, and watch their Grinch heart grow three times bigger, just like Dr. Suess said it would.
As you go dashing through the snow this season, remember, there’s a child in all of us just waiting to come in and get warm. So is Jesus. He is waiting outside in the snow hoping someone hears Him knocking at the door. He is serious about his role as God’s son but has also come to show us great “tidings of comfort and joy.” Open the door! Invite him in for a colossal pancake and give one of my ten tidings a try. It’ll just be us family, and a new baby named Jesus.
Merry Christmas Everyone!