Guest Post by Camille Eide
Christmas is a favorite time of year for many of us. The sights, sounds and holiday smells create a magical sense of warmth, of familiar traditions, and opportunities for special times with special people.
My Christmas Romance, Savanna’s Gift, is set in a beautifully adorned rustic ski lodge in the Oregon Cascades, amid twinkly lights and fresh evergreens. A Christmas wonderland filled with spiced cider and steaming cocoa and treats everywhere you turn. Iced gingerbread cookies, peppermint bark, truffles, cranberry scones, the list goes on.
Apparently I can’t write a Christmas story without treats.
I love Christmas cookies (even though they are currently off my diet). I have a dozen or so favorite cookie & candy recipes I make every year for my family and friends. In recent years, the kids have gotten busy with college and I’ve gotten busy with writing and meeting deadlines. So last year, I announced that I would be cutting down on my usual holiday baking.
Uh . . . no. This was not at all well received by my (young adult) kids. It took me a while to understand their hot reaction to this announcement. It’s COOKIES, guys. We’re not canceling Christmas, just all the back-breaking, marathon baking.
Still no. With tears, even. I was met with more resistance than I’ve seen since they were terribly two. What I began to realize (as I dashed to the store for more butter, powdered sugar, chocolate chips and sprinkles) was that while I never had any Christmas traditions growing up, I didn’t realize how important they were to my kids.
Thankfully, our kids see Christmas first as a celebration the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for that, my husband and I are grateful. We can celebrate Jesus without cookies (did you hear that, kids?) But I needed to understand that my kids—the ones I instilled with a lifetime of Eide family traditions—need the comforting constant of tradition, even now. Especially now as they grow up and make future plans (like wedding plans! Ack!). Now is not the time to cut back, but to proceed as always and hold down the fort as my adult kids prepare to venture out into the world and have families with whom they will create traditions of their own.
In my story, Savanna is hesitant to return to the lodge knowing that at Christmas time, she will face many reminders of special memories and love, a love she lost. But fortunately, she has no choice but to return (thanks to the grinchy author) and face the Christmas music.
I guess without realizing it, I included cookies and yearly traditions in Savanna’s Gift as a reminder to myself that people find comfort in the familiar, the things we’ve come to associate with special moments with the people we love. Hopefully I will keep this in mind as the holiday approaches and I’m tempted to “cut back.”
What are some of your family’s favorite Christmas traditions?
Camille Eide writes contemporary romance and romantic women’s fiction. She lives in Oregon with her husband and is mom to three brilliant college-age kids. She’s grateful for the amazing grace of God, and either in spite of or thanks to that grace, she has a PhD in Learning Stuff the Hard Way. She’s also a church secretary, a bassist, and a passably devoted fan of classic rock, muscle cars, and Jane Austen.
Valerie: I reviewed Camille’s novella here.
Great post, Camille. I’ve threatened to do much the same, but it never works! Two of my girls are still home, though. Traditions at our house: Baking marathons, building gingerbread houses, collecting ornaments, watching Christmas movies, caroling, tea parties . . . The list goes on. Blessings to you this Christmas season!
Deb, methinks our threats fall on deaf ears. *sigh*. I didn’t realize so much love was expressed in sugar & chocolate dipped cookie dough balls. An important lesson for this girl to learn (I, the Mistress of Learning Stuff the Hard Way). I will probably be baking Christmas cookies every year now until I burn down the nursing home. 🙂 Have a Merry, Blessed Christmas!
My mom’s nursing home allowed the residents to help bake cookies. They didn’t let the place burn down, either. So’s you know…
Hi Deb! Baking marathons we definitely do around our place, but (true confession) I’ve never done a gingerbread house. I might have to start doing them with grandkids. Maybe I’ll start next year when SweetPea will be almost three!
Ah, traditions … sometimes we make them when we least realize it. I always dreamed of a beautiful star on top of my Christmas tree. When my firstborn was two, I told my husband we needed a star. He said that he and our son, Josh (the 2-year-old) would handle it. As I finished unpacking our decorations, I thought they were heading to the store to buy one. They came out of the kitchen less than an hour later with a homemade cardboard and tin foil and tape. That star tops our tree every year — 26 years later.
Beth, that is so sweet. You must post a picture of that star. 🙂
Love it, Beth! We had a star like that for a number of years, too.
Two of my favorite people in one place, how cool! Camille, your kids sound like mine. Our tradition has always been to decorate the Christmas tree together. The night also includes baking and merriment!! Since this is our first year being empty nesters, I waited to see what the flight schedules for my kids coming home would be. No, they can’t just jump in the car and drive home, they have to fly back to Bermuda from the US and Canada. And wouldn’t you know it, my son gets home on the 21st, my daughter on the 23rd. Well, says me, too bad. I’m not sitting around staring at an empty tree right up until Christmas! The protests went up in a mighty howl with even my husband chiming in. We’re not breaking with tradition. We’ll be decorating the tree the night before Christmas eve. Together. Like you, I’ve also realized that what we’ve created for our kids is so much more important than being inconvenienced. I may go slightly overboard on decorating the rest of the house just to make up for the wait however…! 🙂
Merry Christmas, Camille and Valerie!
See? What’s up with this? I guess our adult kids NEED this special sense of constancy as they go through new doors in life, something solid to fall back on & know they are still “family” even if the look of that in their own lives begins to change. Or not, could be the caffiene talking. 🙂
Aw, thanks for the compliments, Cathy!
Whew, I’m glad I didn’t create a tradition of the kids NEEDing to help decorate the tree or there would have been a few years in the past ten when it wouldn’t have happened at all. Like you, I’d go crazy with the rest of the house while I waited, though!
Merry Christmas backatcha!
Our college daughter has let some of our traditions go by the wayside as she’s gotten older, but one she clings to tenaciously is the watching of A Muppet Christmas Carol after we get home from our Christmas Eve candlelight service. My hubby and I go to bed earlier than she does, so we tend to doze off during this late night viewing. When she was younger, our gal would get irritated with us when her dad and I nodded off. These days she’s taken keeping us awake until the credits scroll by as a challenge, one that brings us all a smile.
That’s funny, Keli. I think *I’m* the one who insists on watching something special at Christmas and the kids humor me, like the old Boris Carloff version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I look forward to grandkids someday just for an excuse to watch the good old cartoons. 🙂
I laughed uproariously when my daughter (then in her late 20s) found a bunch of the old Christmas VIDEOS and got her brother to watch them with her through all the scratches and crackles. We’d taped them off TV, commercials and all, way back when.
The really funny thing is that both their spouses thought they were crazy–and then sat down and watched, too.
When I was growing up the family tradition was oyster stew on Christmas Eve. Shhh. I hated it.
Midwest: oysters from a can in a “broth” of milk with a bit of butter. I loved the oyster crackers though. As a wife and mother I experimented with various treats: home made enchiladas became a favorite. The one year I made split pea soup from a European recipe. Besides the split peas it had five or six meats (wursts, sausages, etc.) and potatoes, shredded carrots, celery, onions. Served with cornbread after Christmas Eve services, it became the absolute favorite. Now, many years later, my college-age grandson, who won’t get home till Christmas Day this year, said “Save some pea soup for me!” No question of that. It’s usually about a gallon!
Lois, I had relatives for a short time as a kid that also did Oyster Stew for Christmas Eve. (Were you related?? Or from Walla Walla??) I wonder if it was some kind of ancestral tradition. My mom made it and we waited for the step-grandparents to arrive late Christmas Eve (we’re talking 2 or 3am) and have Oyster Stew then. That was the deal. We had to eat it when they arrived, no matter what time it was. Talk about Dickens style nightmares… but I was a little in awe of such a family tradition, albeit a weird one, because until then, I’d never seen such a thing. Interesting!
Oh wow, Lois. That pea soup sounds awesome! I make mine with (only) ham for meat…and its broth, of course.
This is like reading my own story, Camille! LOL! I got the same reaction with my family. In a way it blessed me because it showed me I’d created something special for my family. Besides the baking, my girls love the Christmas quilt calendar I made when they were little. It counts down the days to Christmas with an ornament to hang and they love lighting the candles in our advent wreath even now. 🙂
Hi Dineen! A Christmas quilt calendar sounds awesome! Do you have a photo posted online somewhere?
Hi Valerie! Here’s a link to a post I did about Christmas traditions in 2009 at Laced with Grace that has a picture of it. It’s about halfway down the post.
http://lacedwithgrace.com/inspirational/christmas-traditions/
Oooh, thanks, Dineen! I’ll hop right over.
Nom, nom, nom!
What a great post from a great writer. I’m your biggest fan!
Hi Karla! Thanks for coming by. 🙂
Thanks for having me over, Valerie!
Aw, Karla. You’re a rock star!
Thanks for sharing this post and thanks for sharing your book. Everyone has different Christmas Traditions that they observe with their families, most of them include some favorite foods.
Hi Deb. Isn’t it amazing how many traditions do revolve around food? I’ll think about why that is as I ice gingerbread men tonight, lol.
Thanks for letting ramble on your blog, Valerie. Have a very Merry Christmas!
Thanks for coming, Camille. It’s been fun 🙂
I haven’t made any traditions for my kids and I didn’t really have any growing up, so this post makes me smile. You’re a nice mom to indulge them, Camille. 🙂 Hope you had fun baking!
Oh. I haven’t yet, Jess. Will do that this weekend. People around here will get their cookies like on Christmas day. When they are probably already all cookied-out. 🙂 I maybe sending you a bucket of chocolate-covered cookie dough balls…