Hoiday Traditions, Phillips Family Style

I love the holidays. I think it is so much because I associate so many wonderfully warm family memories of the holidays over the years. Mom and dad are so good to celebrate the holidays surrounded with strong family traditions that I cherish so much! Here are a few thought and memories of my holidays of the passed...

Let me start with my last Halloween, just because we've just come through that holiday. As an adult I do not enjoy the holiday. I don't really get the thrill of it. I'm a Halloween scrooge. I wasn't always though. As I child I remember dressing up and going trick-or-treating in Lewiston, UT, knocking upon fellow neighbor's doors with the anticipation of sweets. Back then, you'd get cool homemade popcorn balls the kind that will remove any loose baby teeth you might have had. If that didn't loosen them, then the caramel apple would. Being the youngest, I quit trick-or-treating when my brother just 2 years older than me quit. I didn't want to go by myself. I was sort of sad. But mom put together a goody sack for each of us kids, and that was way better than what I would have gotten from trick-or-treating. (caramel apple, Babe Ruth, candy..) We busied ourselves that night manning the pillowcase ghost we rigged from Brad's 2nd story bedroom window and took turns popping out of the water meter hole, scaring younger kids who dared to visit our home! I'm certain the recorded scary voices we made on the reel-to-reel wasn't as effective in the scare factor department, but it was building memories.

Thanksgiving was the blessed day when we could pork out! Things would begin the night before. I remember it was pretty much WWF between mom and the turkey. I think the turkey was still frozen even though it had soaked in our claw foot bath tub. Mom would wrestle the turkey into submission of it's innards. In the morning the submissive turkey was placed in the oven and after a while when the smell stared to saturate the house, dad would step in. I think we must have bugged mom with the question "Is it done yet?" too often. Dad would round us up and we'd reap the benefits of having a school teacher parent. We'd head down to the elementary school, which used to be a Junior High and we'd have full reign of the gym and all the basketballs. I'd generally opt out while the boys played basketball, but we'd all play when it came to HORSE. By the time we got home, we all enjoyed the heavenly smells. We would each place 5 kernels of corn on our plates and dad would tell us about the pilgrims and how we are blessed to have more than they and those throughout the world who only get about 5 kernels of corn a day. He'd say a blessing on the food and give thanks and then we'd eat our corn kernels, ponder then give our own silent thanks that we had a feast ahead of us. Everyone helped in clean up but the cool thing was that mom didn't bother to fix dinner, we had free reign over the food the rest of the day. We could eat whenever we wanted to for the rest of the day. I worked very hard to stuff myself with deviled eggs, turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Now days, I sort of slowed down, but still enjoy the feasting!

Christmas holds more traditions. It begins way before Christmas Eve. With children begging to open gifts on Christmas Eve, mom and dad came up with the tradition of the Gift of Love, a gift we got to open on Christmas Eve. The gift of love was a coupon book, handmade from the giver. We drew names after Thanksgiving so we'd have time to come up with our coupons with our gifts of love, tiny acts of service for the name we drew. The coupons were good for the whole duration of the following year. So, when Christmas Eve came, there was great anticipation to find out who was giving you your Gift of Love, as well as share yours. We would have hot chocolate with a candy cane melting in it. Dad would begin read the Christmas story from Luke and then we'd open our Gifts of Love. I'm sure the evening was interrupted now and then with neighbors dropping by to carol. We loved it. I loved the snow and the cozy feeling of the season. We'd each fill small gifts and treats into the other's stockings before bedtime then spend a sleepless night thinking of all the cool gifts we'd get to open the following day. Christmas morning, we'd get to only open our stockings. We'd eat breakfast in which we'd have to clean up all the dishes before sitting down to begin gift opening. Mom and dad years ago stared our gift opening tradition when they saw that us kids couldn't remember or appreciate the giver of the gift when we opened them all at once. So we opened our gifts, one every hour. Each got to open a gift each hour, but no more than one. This would give us a full hour to appreciate the gift and the giver. This has been a tradition I've loved because we sometimes are still opening gifts until evening! The feasting was the same as Thanksgiving, free reign on the kitchen after the big feast was eaten and cleaned up. We always spent the afternoons playing together as a family or hanging out in the same room all day. I loved it. I'm grateful to have such fond memories of my family growing up and know that I am so blessed to have had the childhood that I did. I will enter this Thanksgiving season with much gratitude. This year will be my first all alone for the holidays, and I'm not bummed, just floating on warm memories of the holidays from the past, looking forward to the ones of the future.