I get so excited this time of year. However, I hate the cold. I do not understand why I am this cold without snow. Snow lays a glistening blanket over everything. It creates a warm feeling of excitement on a freezing day. Some of the best days of the year are snow days. It’s when you can relax and drink a nice cup of hot chocolate. If I’m cold it should only be because it’s snowing. It is only acceptable not to snow when it’s cold on Christmas eve. I would love a white Christmas, but every Christmas eve I get to head to my Uncle’s house! I love Christmas Eve. To me that is the best holiday of the year. I have two naps that day, one on the drive there and one on the way home and if there was snow it might be too dangerous to go. But once I get home snow can start falling at any moment. I am happy that it’s getting colder because that means the holiday season has begun. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Two more weeks and winter break can commence and the holiday traditions will continue. Traditions are passed down from family to family, but they are also created. My mom creates a new cookie every year that she adds to her cookie list. The smell of Christmas cookies spread through my house, oh my goodness I can smell it now! The food alone is one of the best traditions of all holidays. This year my family did Thanksgiving a little differently, but that’s okay because there was less stress and pumpkin cheesecake! Oh, and my family was still all together. Thanksgiving is like a practice run for Christmas. We eat a lot of food for Thanksgiving, but it’s nothing compared to Christmas. My Christmas Eve normally starts with waking up slowly, but also on the earlier side. My dad, sister, and I drive around the neighborhood dropping off nutroll, a Slovak dessert. We give them out to family friends. My mom is amazing for how many she makes every year. It’s insane, I do not know how she does it. Plus, while we’re driving around my mom is prepping even more food for Christmas Eve. Imagine a lot of food, then double it, and that’s almost as much food as my mom makes just for Christmas Eve. Once all the nutroll delivery is done we get home and get changed and pack for the day. The food and gifts are placed strategically in the back to make sure everything fits and doesn’t break. Then we all squish into the car and head out. Normally we are running late, but that’s okay, it’s family. Once we arrive hugs are given out. Good hugs too. We start eating appetizers right away. Which is why you skip breakfast. Everyone is talking and catching up. Then my Uncle Mike mans the kitchen. It’s fun to watch him and my dad plan out how everything needs to be cooked or heated up. Eventually, it’s time to eat. The table gets cleared of all of the appetizers that are practically gone. My Aunt Cheryl makes the best pigs in a blanket and there are never any left and my mom loves her homemade crackers. They are good with all of the dips that are out. Dinner gets started, drinks are served, the food is passed around. Now, it is always important to try to get the seat closest to the food that you want to eat the most. It’s hard to narrow down to which food I want the most, but normally we all argue over pierogies. I love Christmas eve also because of all the seafood we eat every year. After everyone has stuffed their face, we lean back and wonder how we will manage to eat dessert, but I know that I’m going to get hungry again by that point. Next, it’s clean up time aka the time where my dad insists on cleaning and my aunt and uncle insist he sits down. My dad always wins. It’s funny and I love watching everyone. Just writing about it I feel warmer and more excited for the Christmas season to truly start. Normally after we finish eating my Aunt Jane and Uncle Dave walk through the door. More good hugs are passed around. Soon after my cousin Nate and his wife Dani and their son Sirus walk through too. I’m the youngest in my family, so I never got to experience a baby during the holidays and it is everything I could have every asked for. We
all catch up some more. Normally there is a lot of laughing. Then it’s present time. Yes, present time used to be my favorite time, but I was a kid who liked getting new things. Now, I’m still a kid, but I appreciate family so much more. I feel that Christmas Eve is the one day of the year where nothing else matters except the joy of being with loved ones. At the end we all wish each other a merry Christmas and go back home to our beds, so Santa can come. Christmas day is also filled with joy! My Uncle Danny has been coming the past few years and my Aunt Susie came last year too! However, that’s later in the day. My favorite thing is the morning is being the first one awake. I wake up and walk around the entire house to see if anyone else is up. Normally it’s just me, but that’s okay. I let my dog out and breathe in the fresh, crisp Christmas morning air. Then I quickly scurry back inside because I get too cold. I try to give them all an extra hour to sleep in, but it’s just so hard. Once my dad and mom are up and start making hot tea and coffee I go wake up my brother, but for the past year or two he’s normally up before me. We tend to tease each other about cheating. See, my family has the tradition of looking for the pickle ornament. Whoever finds the ornament wins the pickle present. I like to win. Winning was hard when I was younger, but then I played a lot of I spy games and got better. My sister, Laney, and soon to be sister-in-law, Alison, are the stragglers when it comes to waking up. I normally have to do a lot of back and forth. First, I try waking Laney and then going back downstairs to try and get Alison up. The best way to get Alison up is for my brother to bring her coffee in bed. The best way to get Laney up is to tell her one of two things, I’m going to eat all the Nutroll or I’m going to start looking for the pickle. Either way, the day gets started. Traditions get rolling and the pickle ornament is found. Hopefully, by me first! For the past two years, the girls have gotten new Christmas pjs. This is a fantastic tradition. Me and my sister started it by buying us our own pjs and my mom a matching set. I loved when she received that gift because she put them on right away and from the bathroom she yelled through the house, “It has POCKETS!” Any girl should know that any bottoms that have pockets are so hard to find. The following year Santa got all the Fries Chicks a pair. I love Christmas traditions. Waking everyone up is a lot of fun for me, but maybe not for everyone else. It’s the one day a year where I’m the early bird. That’s why I need my naps on Christmas Eve. There is also the tradition of all the food and the company. I love that our family is growing and I love all the happiness this holiday brings. I know my mom stresses and does too much work for the holiday, and I hope to try to help more each year, but all the hard work that goes into these two days makes my entire year. Christmas is a magical time of the year, but what makes it the best time of year are the people I am lucky enough to share it with. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday and enjoys the traditions too!