It’s less than three weeks until Christmas. I’m sure you already knew that, but it’s just hit me. The only decorating I’ve done, so far, is here on this blog. I’m not doing much shopping this year, but I’ve put a few little things in my online cart. I’m clearly lagging behind.
I don’t even have a good excuse. It’s not like I’m writing up a storm. (I wish.) One of our sons is a member of the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, and tonight we attend their annual holiday concert, so maybe that will get me in the mood. Even if it doesn’t, I have no more time to waste.
At least I don’t have to plan any menus. We’ll be going to a son’s house for Christmas day, and our Christmas Eve dinner is always the same. We have a Syrian feast. My husband will make the kibbee (triple-ground round steak with cracked wheat and onions) to prepare three ways—my favorite is nayee (raw).
Probably a granddaughter or two will come over to help roll the grape leaves, but it will be up to me alone to see if this year I can successfully make the vegetarian version.
My husband and I make the hummus together. I’ll cook the lubee (grean beans) and pilaf, and make tabouleh, and khyar bi laban (cucumber yogurt salad). Maybe I’ll get ambitious and make fatayer sabanigh (spinach pies). For our oldest son who fondly remembers his Aunt Ronni’s American addition of creamed corn, we’ll have a little of that. Of course, we’ll also have pita, yogurt, olives, braided cheese, raw veggies, baklava and cookies.
And wine, of course! As you can see, the women start on that in the kitchen and we laugh a lot.
This year, all of our sons and grandchildren will be here. At some point, our second son will measure all the grandchildren against the inside of the closet door. Gifts will be given out, starting in an orderly fashion and ending in joyful chaos. And this year, hopefully, we’ll remember to take a family group photo before anyone leaves.
Your turn: What holiday traditions do you observe in your family?
We knew we had a leak in the garage roof, so we’ve stored all our Christmas decorations in plastic bins under a tarp. The lid on this one was still closed tight, and there were no obvious cracks in it or the bin, yet somehow water had entered this one. Where I live, it rarely rains from April to October. We had our leaky garage reroofed in late summer, so for at least seven months fungus had been growing in the container. We sprayed half a can of Lysol before even attempting to look through things. All the boxes fell apart when touched. I attempted to wash off the glass ornaments, but they were so damaged the paint came off immediately. At least seventy purchased ornaments went into the trashcan.
My first Christmas memory is of the year I was five and spoiled Santa for my sister. My next memory is of my ninth, when I got my last baby doll—yes, nine. We grew up much slower back in the olden days. The next one I remember specifically, I think I was sixteen. That was the year my mother bought a silver tree. Silver as in aluminum foil! Due to its nature, we couldn’t trim that abomination with our traditional colored lights, so she’d bought the rotating color wheel accessory. I detested that tree. It took its presence as a personal offense. To this day, I blame that misguided experiment for inciting my slavery to Christmas decorating traditions.
Two hours later, we arrived home to find our beautiful tree on the floor and shattered glass everywhere. My birthday present kitty had wrecked my Christmas tree. Most of the birds survived because they were secured to the branches, but half the bulbs were now glittery pieces. We drove a nail in the wall and secured the tree upright with fishing line. Military pay didn’t stretch far enough to replace the broken ornaments, so I had to stretch the remaining ones over the tree.
This golden bird on my Christmas tree is the last remaining glass ornament I bought in Germany. There were a dozen of them originally, though a few were broken that very first year when our kitten pounced and toppled the tree. Others either never survived their shipment back to the States the following year, or our subsequent nomadic life.