Christmas Rituals

When our lad was small and grandparents we still with us, we extended his Christmas over the three families. Christmas day at my mum's with all the grandparents presents, then boxing day at home with the presents from P and I, then on the next day or so over to P's parents with all their presents. He was the envy of all his pals having three xmas days.

Night Before Christmas was a tradition at ours as well. These days it's the food that's a tradition rather than actions. Must have dozens of mince pies made to grandma's special recipe. She used to make masses, and I seem to have adopted the mince pie mantle. Son and DiL usually spend the day helping make them but not this year. Asparagus rolls for Xmas tea are a must, although sourcing tinned asparagus was quite a chore this year, it's obviously out of fashion. In years gone by I would make and decorate Christmas cakes, perhaps at least a dozen, now I haven't make a cake at all. P has a passion for home made cheese crisps, which get rolled out the week before Christmas. My treat is butter.

Over the years when my kids were small we had a tradition of going in to Dublin City on Christmas Eve for a walk around looking at all the lights and certain large department stores window displays. We would also do a final visit to Santa before heading somewhere for tea, which later became McDonalds when they arrived in Ireland. We tried this with our first grandson one year, he’s now 15 but felt it better that he and later his brother should create their own traditions with their parents. We started a new one with the grand children to visit Santa and have a sleepover the week before Christmas.

If we weren't actually seeing my Kent grandparents and cousins on the big day we would go for the weekend before. Coming back to Reading we would drive back through the centre of London to see the lights. Oh, the empty roads of the 70s!