{"id":635,"date":"2025-01-03T22:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T22:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/?p=635"},"modified":"2025-01-03T22:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T22:58:16","slug":"whats-my-favorite-holiday-tradition-where-does-it-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/03\/whats-my-favorite-holiday-tradition-where-does-it-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s my favorite holiday tradition? Where does it come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For my 70th birthday this year, my daughters gave me a Storyworth subscription. On this website, the “storyteller” (the person telling their story) receives an email with a question (writing prompt) to answer. Storyworth Memoirs are designed to make it easy to turn your memories into a memoir your loved ones can cherish forever. I think it’s a great gift and I’ve started the memoir ball rolling with the first question: What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Where does it come from?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s my favorite holiday tradition? Well…that’s a tough one as there have been many holiday \u201ctraditions\u201d<\/em> through the years, with new ones being adopted as our children grew into adults and we welcomed grandchildren into the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, Christmas was always a special time. My birthday lands exactly a week before Christmas, and the holiday decorations and twinkling lights always make my birthday feel unique and extraordinary. And there’s music! All the Christmas tunes, both old and new, invigorate and brighten the mood for that oh-so-limited amount of time before the \u201cbig day\u201d… although my wife believes the limited time for Christmas music isn’t limited enough. When I was a kid, there were several times I received just one gift from family or friends that covered both occasions and, even though I was grateful for the gift, it was kind of a bummer. Still, it never dampened my spirit and love of this magical time of year. As I grew up, the memory of sometimes receiving just one gift for my birthday and Christmas lingered and influenced how we celebrate the birthdays of two of our children who were also born during the holiday season. My wife and I make sure to celebrate their birthdays and Christmas as two special, separate events\u2026as if their birthdays occurred in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a boy, my extended Sicilian family of aunts, uncles, and cousins always gathered on Christmas Eve at my Nana and Nanu\u2019s house. It was a large and loud party where I would get to hang out all night with my cousins. A delicious evening filled with comforting Italian food like sausage and peppers with onions, pasta with meatballs and sauce, and shrimp and charcuterie plates. Desert featured all kinds of traditional Italian Christmas cookies that you only got once a year. It was a night filled with excited anticipation for a visit from Santa, who made a special stop on his long journey around the world to hand out presents to the \u201ccugine\u201d and then be back on his way. It took us cousins quite a few years to figure out that our Uncle Joe was the one who facilitated Santa\u2019s appearance at Nana’s house every year, which was always extra special and has remained the one-holiday tradition that continues to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years I inherited the hosting of our family Christmas Eve celebration, which is truly a blessing, wherever our home may be. Since we moved to California eight years ago, our celebration has been scaled down to our immediate but growing family. The traditional Italian food is still served, as are the traditional Italian cookies, which these days are store-bought instead of homemade. And it seems I have inherited more than just hosting duties each year, as Santa, in his bright red and white suit and sack of presents on his back, still makes a special visit to our Christmas party to hand out presents to the kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my favorite holiday tradition? The Christmas Eve celebration with my family, holiday lights and decorations all over the house, separate and special birthday parties, and that much-anticipated visit from Santa dropping by! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my 70th birthday this year, my daughters gave me a Storyworth subscription. On this website, the “storyteller” (the person telling their story) receives an email with a question (writing prompt) to answer. Storyworth Memoirs are designed to make it easy to turn your memories into a memoir your loved ones can cherish forever. I … Continue reading “What’s my favorite holiday tradition? Where does it come from?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pddwuS-af","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classclownstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}