Cinna-Minnies Newsletter

 December 2006

“What is the first gift of Christmas?” That’s what Mary Parkins asked Richard Evans in the famous movie, The Christmas Box. To discover the answer to that question, I suggest that you rent this movie. It will add to your joy of the season and also provide some serious thought as to the real meaning of Christmas.

Throughout last month I have been sharing with you some of my family’s very special holiday recipes. Now, as promised in last month’s newsletter, I want to share some of our family’s special Christmas traditions.

One week before Christmas I would always bake our favorite brown sugar cookies—a secret family recipe I am not allowed to share. They are delicious, and perfect for cutting out all sorts of holiday shapes that can then be decorated with lots of buttercream frosting.  With our high tech tools, toothpicks, and butter knives, we would carefully decorate each cookie, eat some frosting and cookies along the way, and have lots of fun family time as Christmas carols were played in the background. It was a great way to start our holiday celebrations and to build the memories we so enjoy today.

Instilling the real meaning of Christmas within the hearts and minds of our four wonderful and beautiful daughters was paramount in all of our Christmas traditions. On Christmas Eve, my husband John would read from the Scripture about the birth of our Savior. Afterwards, we would sing our favorite Christmas carols. As part of our Christmas Eve program we would have a birthday cake for Jesus. I adorned a Sara Lee's frozen coconut cake with a miniature nativity scene and one candle. Then we would gather ‘round the dinning room table and, with reverence, sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
 

Christy and Amy.  Christy is sing happy birthday to Jesus.
 

The children would then return to our formal living room dressed in their PJs and, with eager anticipation, await their turn to open up one gift. Like so many other families, we also prepared a plate of our decorated cookies, some milk, and a special note to Santa. Then, after family prayer, it was off to bed for the girls. Later that evening, when John and I were through wrapping the presents, we would quietly go into our daughters’ rooms to stick a “Santa Sticker” on the headboard of each child’s bed. Below is a picture of our eldest daughter Christy, age 2, on Christmas morning pointing to her Santa Sticker.

The Santa Sticker is a special tradition that my father started for me and my five sisters. On Christmas morning, our daughters would look at their headboard to see if Santa had visited our home on Christmas Eve. If there was a Santa sticker, it meant that Santa had come to our house and filled each of their stockings. Because this tradition always generated smiles, giggles, and great excitement for me as a child, and then for my own children, they naturally continued the tradition when they had children of their own.

Our girls knew that they could wake us up anytime they wanted to in the morning, and the first thing they did was look to see what was in the stockings Santa had left for each of them. I always tried to entice them to eat breakfast first like my dad used to do, but I was always outvoted by them and their dad. Secretly, I was glad because I was as excited as they were to begin opening our gifts. We always took turns, starting with the youngest child. As each of us opened a gift, the others watched so they could share in the joy of the person who was opening the gift. There were always lots of thank-you’s, hugs, and tears, and this added much to the whole joy of gift giving. I was so glad we took our time and could enjoy each other’s reactions to the gifts that we each received. Our daughter Amy still follows this tradition.

After the gifts were opened, I would sneak off to the kitchen to set the table with cheese, fruit, and homemade rolls—cinnamon, of course! To this day, our girls look forward to my ooey-gooey cinnamon rolls. I don’t have a recipe for them that I can share because I’m one of those cooks who rarely uses a recipe—and this one is “a little of this and that” kind of recipe. Snacking on all of our homemade goodies, with the addition of fruit, cheese, and nuts was par for the day. This was our special day to relax, play all the new games with our children, and allow them the time to enjoy all of their gifts. Several days later we would join John's family for a large and delicious Christmas Turkey Dinner with all of the trimmings most generally at mom Beach's home.

The next evening we would continue with one of our most favorite traditions—making  gingerbread houses together. How this started I do not remember, but I do remember that it was always a big part of our family’s Christmas tradition—and it remains so today now that my daughters have their own homes and families. I hope you have noticed that paramount to all of our holiday traditions is the importance of spending quality time together as a family. We continue today to build memories that can be passed down to the next generation.

This past Saturday John and I went out to dinner with our daughter Amy, our son-in-law Joe, and our grandchildren Gabe, Grace, and Lilly. Earlier that day, John and I went to a Jo-Ann's store where I noticed they were selling gingerbread house kits on sale. I asked Gabe (age 7) and Grace (age 4) if they wanted grandma to purchase the gingerbread house kits or if they wanted to make the gingerbread houses from scratch, the way we always do with graham crackers. I was delighted with their quiet answer. “I want to do it like we always have,” said Gabe, and Grace agreed. This proved to me that traditions that bring families together and involves all to complete a project is what’s important.

It is quite the scene to see mom and dad helping each child hold their graham-cracker house together until the royal icing sets up and cements the pieces together. This takes team work, it teaches patience, and it builds happy memories. Our final tradition for the season happens on New Year’s Day when each child places his or her gingerbread candy house into a very large Tupperware bowl and smashes it to pieces with a hammer. Then they gather the pieces in a zipper plastic bag to enjoy.

Many of our family’s traditions may be common to your family as well as ours; the difference is that each family is not common, and the traditions that we choose to celebrate the holidays--whether you call it Christmas, Chanukah, or Kwanzaa--defines our beliefs and builds special memories that warm our hearts and remind us of what is important for each family member.   Our faith is centered on Jesus Christ. The name of our church—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints--declares that fact to the world. We believe that the message of this season, which is applicable throughout the year, lies not in the receiving of earthly presents and treasures, but in the forsaking of selfishness and greed and in going forward, seeking and enjoying the gifts of the Spirit, which Paul said are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22-23).