Christmas Eve

At Grandma and Grandpa's Place....

We always got together on Christmas Eve.

We did NOT open presents. Christmas Eve was a time for two things:

Singing Christmas carols around Grandma's old upright piano and listening to Grandpa read the Christmas story from the Bible.

Aunt Susan would play the piano and we would all call out the songs we wanted to sing. We would stand around sharing old church hymnals and signing every carol we could think of. As always, those of us who knew how to play were asked to do a couple of special numbers after the sing-along.

We also drank eggnog...the real stuff with raw eggs and pounds of sugar in it...and had some Christmas goodies like cookies and fudge.

The funny thing is my Grandma made awful cookies. They were always burnt. She was a wonderful cook, and almost everything I know about cooking I learned from her, but she couldn't make a decent cookie. I think it was her oven. I think the temperature just wasn't regulated properly.

She did make some really good fudge though. She had a fudge recipe that called for coffee. Not a single soul in the family (except a couple of in-laws, including my mom) drank coffee, so Grandma just brewed up some instant in a sauce pan on the stove. One year (I think it was actually on Christmas Day) we were all in the kitchen preparing the meal. In the midst of making the stuffing, apple-banana salad and mashed potatoes we were also making the fudge. My Aunt Susan (a notoriously bad cook, but a funny one) got the coffee and poured it into the fudge mixture. It wasn't long before we realized that she had actually grabbed the pan of drippings and onions and stuff that was supposed to go into the stuffing. Needless to say no one ate that fudge.

But anyway, back to Christmas Eve....At the end of the evening we would all crowd into the living room and sit down to listen to Grandpa read. He would read from Luke 2 and then skip over to Matthew to read the story of the Magi's journey. It was quiet and simple and sweet.

This year we are going to do it again. Grandpa passed away last year just before Christmas and Grandma had to move out of the house and in with my uncle. But tonight we are going to open the house up again and meet there (maybe for the last time) to carry on the old traditions.

I'd better start practicing my piano solo.

I think I'll bring the cookies.