A colleague of mine and his wife are playing Naughty Elf.
Uh uh. Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but that’s not what it is. Every night in December when their boys go to bed, a stuffed Elf in their house comes to life and does mischevious things around the house. Thursday night it was TP - the boys woke up to a house covered in toilet paper and an elf with a roll in his hand. The plan Friday night was to drive the family car into the back yard for the boys to find it with the elf in the drivers seat - and when they turned the car on to move it, to have the stereo blasting Christmas music.
This sounds so damn fun it almost makes me wish I had kids, and have half a mind to figure out how to make it work with just me and The Mc.
My family traditions growing up involved the nativity set my parents made when they were newlyweds. I say “made” but that’s pushing it - the figures are ceramic and they painted them. Brown. I only know when they were created because my folks signed and dated the bottom of Mary, Joesph and the manger.
Christmas morning we’d get up, the folks would get baby Jesus out of his hiding place, and we’d sing happy birthday and put him in his manger. We’d open our presents one at a time with Dad playing Santa, all of us “ooh”-ing and “ahh”-ing over our siblings presents, which was crap because we really just wanted them to be satisfied so we could get our next one. We’d have a big breakfast and drink these green slushy things my dad made with 7-Up and lime sherbet. Mmmm. I think they may have had Creme de Minthe in them, but I’m not sure if that came with age or our level of spazzitude. Getting the kids tipsy might have been one way to calm us down.
Somehow, I’m the kid who inherited the nativity set. Every year, even if I don’t get a tree or decorate with swags of fake green or hang a wreath on my door; I still set Mary, Joesph and the manger out, “hide” baby Jesus and bring him out early Christmas morning while singing happy birthday.
My tradition is all queued up and I’m curious (since I may be starting a few new ones): what are your most cherished traditions - past or present?
17 Dec 07
9:51 am
I get some chinese food and then go home and get loaded on scotch. (Like every day I don’t have to work, basically.)
17 Dec 07
10:51 am
I knew my family was not the only one to sing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus on Christmas Day. Doesn’t make it any less ridiculous however.
17 Dec 07
11:59 am
I think it was the spazzitude. The alcohol was saved for the giant pitcher of Brandy Alexanders they whipped up, once we had our 400 grams of sugar after waking them up at o-dark-hundred.
On the other hand,when you and bosskat were teething, a pacifier dipped in bourbon and then the sugar dish worked wonders. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.
17 Dec 07
1:12 pm
Our tradition of going by the neighbor’s house with the life size ‘electric Jesus’ in their front window is no more since they moved away.
17 Dec 07
1:38 pm
Tree - we always decorated the tree the night “A Charlie Brown Christmas” came on tv - then after it was off we listened to our Sing Along with Mitch album: (http://tinyurl.com/yrk3vr)
Christmas Eve:
We baked an apple spice cake — it was Baby Jesus’ birthday cake, and that and a cup of coffee were left out for Santa
We had Christmas morning rules:
1 - it had to be light enough to see the trees
2 - we had to go into the living room together (Santa didn’t wrap our presents)
3 - we had to wake up mom as we came into the living room
4 - we dumped our stockings at the same time
Now — I still have some… Santa doesn’t wrap my kids’ presents… they have to go into living room together after waking us up (at least if one year they actually wake up first!)…they dump their stockings at same time
17 Dec 07
1:38 pm
Oh, so many to choose from. There’s the tradition of getting ready to open presents and then everybody FREEZE, wait, Dad has to go get a giant garbage bag for the wrapping paper. Then there’s counting how many times he reminds Mom to write down on The List who gave him what from the work sphere for Thank You note purposes — no matter how many years we’ve gone through this ritual.
Then later, the aunt & uncle & cousins come over, and my aunt continues the tradition of buying all the cousins some manner of toy weapon — Nerf dart gun, ping pong pop-gun, super soaker, disc flinger, etc — and unleashing us upon the house to act like we’re all 25 years younger than we ought.
17 Dec 07
2:13 pm
Oh My God! I want to play Naughty Elf!!! Maybe for the cats? Somehow I don’t think they’d care, or notice, or both. Maybe I’ll start hiding Baby’s stuff.
What great memories you shared. We had some pretty tortuous rituals when we were kids as well, like Bear’s. We would often get up so early that Santa hadn’t actually come yet. As we got older Santa started wrapping our presents though, that sucked. But basically the deal was, we all had to get up at the same time and wake our parents before going into the living room. Then, we would peak but we’d have to go directly to the dining room table while my mother, who never EVER cooked, made the biggest longest breakfast ever. Ever. Only after breakfast were we allowed to tear into the living room to play with everything. It was quite torture.
Good memories though.
Thanks!
17 Dec 07
2:39 pm
Those are great.
Ya’ll just reminded me of the whole “getting there” experience. Our bedrooms were downstairs and the tree was upstairs. Santa wrapped our presents until we were I donno…I guess I was probably 10?
Anyway, Kev or I would inevitably have to *go* in the middle of the night, and an older sibling would have to accompany us and hold their hands over our eyes until we got to the bathroom (upstairs) so we wouldn’t see anything - you know - like SANTA.
Jen was always my escort and I really don’t know how she had that much patience for my squirmy whiny 5 year old self when she was just 13.
We’d also lay there unable to sleep (maybe this was after Jen went away to school?) in our rooms on opposite sides of the hallway, and Kev and I would have impromptu hand-fart noise contests to entertain ourselves. You know, since we weren’t allowed to get out of our beds. Maybe Bri was still at home? I don’t remember anymore, but they were good times.
18 Dec 07
12:09 am
Juicy Fruit…my grandmother (my mother’s mother who I am most alike) was very poor and gave all of her grandchildren the same present year after year. It was a tiny little bundle of Juicy Fruit gum (couple of slices) wrapped in two $1 bills. It wasn’t much but we all looked forward to it year after year. I miss Juicy Fruit gum…and my grandmother.
The other tradition is one started by my father and still practiced today (though we kids and grandkids know the gig). On New Year’s Eve the Elves return on their way back to the north pole. If you’ve been good, you get to keep your presents and there is a special surprise (if you’ve been naughty, then the elves confiscate the presents Santa just brought the week before) On their way, the elves fly over your house and throw candy through the roof of our house right into our living room. Now, what actually happens is that my father walks into the house with tons of candy stuffed into his overcoat pockets. When the kids are distracted, he randomly throws a handful of candy up at the ceiling so that it appears to rain down through the ceiling. The kids all scamper to grab candy. My kids are nearly all adults and my dad STILL tells them to behave because the elves are coming!
18 Dec 07
3:26 pm
I may have to start a new tradition of coming to this post every day before Christmas just to look at that precious picture.
Makes my chest all tight and giggly. In a good way.
20 Dec 07
7:43 pm
Our tradition was that my sister and I could open our stockings before anyone else got up but we couldn’t touch the presents under the tree. Then, once everyone was up and had their coffee, we would hand out all the presents. One at a time, we would open our presents. Being the oldest, I got to go last which I thought was great becuase I got to prolong the whole affair. My Mom also started a tradition where we would have scavenger hunts for our presents. The one under the tree would just have a clue and we’d have to then find the next clue and the next and so on. My sister was very good at coming up with funny back stories and rhymes. She actually still has them and read them to me over the phone the other night. In fact, I asked her to send them to me so that I add her as a guest blogger as they were extremely funny but also very creative.
28 Dec 07
7:28 am
Yum, I love that stuff made with green sherbert. I never associated it with christmas, but it’s still tasty