40th anniversary

I'm waiting for the butter to soften so Rachel and I can bake Christmas cookies. More accurately, so we can make the sugar cookie dough and get it in the fridge to set before we make Christmas cookies this afternoon.

My Christmas cookie recipe is one my mom tore out of the now defunct American Home magazine in December of 1966. Wow, this is the 40th anniversary of my favorite Christmas cookie. This dated recipe even calls for shortening. We're definitely not telling Thomas Freiden (New York City's paternalistic Board of Health Commissioner). He wouldn't approve.

As we all are aware, traditions take on a special importance around the holiday season. Sometimes we get so entrenched in traditions that we can't extract ourselves even when we realize that our traditions are burdensome. And yet, what seems burdensome also creates holiday memories. And memories are an integral part of traditions.

In my family, we opened Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve. It was always quite the schedule. We had a sitdown dinner of 3 different home made quiches in the formal dining room with the good china. We cleaned up and went to Christmas mass, arriving early in order to secure seats in the overcrowded upstairs church (we usually attended mass in the more informal downstairs church). After mass, we went to a relative's house for a Christmas Eve visit. Santa was always gracious enough to make his annual delivery while we were out, enabling us to arrive home to a wealth of gifts which we then spent the remainder of the evening (night?) opening, one at a time. Bedtime was usually after midnight.

This will be my first Christmas not spent with my parents. To put that in some perspective, this will also be my 45th Christmas. Accordingly, this is Rachel's first Christmas without my parents. This is Rachel's 15th Christmas.

So, we're faced with creating our own traditions while incorporating our treasured historical traditions. We will, of course, have Christmas cookies from the 40 year old recipe. We're going to do fondue (3 kinds, cheese, oil and chocolate) for dinner and dessert, not quite as formal but just as much of a production. We'll go for a walk after dinner through our snow covered, tree-lit, Christmas card town during which time Santa will graciously make his delivery so that we can return to stay up way too late opening gifts.