Christmas

For my final project I decided to look at both sides of my family (my mother and father) and look at the Christmas traditions that are contained within both families, how they have changed throughout the years, and try to pin point why they changed, whether it be due to geographic location, or to cases of functionality.  First a bit of family background.  My mother's side of the family hails from Italy, more specifically from Sicily (the "football" that the "boot" is "kicking," below is a map showing where Sicily is located in Europe).  My mother was born in the U.S., and my grandmother was born in Sicily.  My father's side of the family comes from Germany, my father being born in the U.S., and my grandmother was born in Hamburg (below is a map showing Germany, and in the northern part is Hamburg where my family comes from, it is one of the busies ports in all of Germany, and is not on the coast, but rather inland, with the shipping taking place on the Elbe River).  Now, I need to clear a couple of things here before delving into the insanity known as Christmas in my family, unfortunately my grandfathers on both sides of the family are no longer with us, and that is why I did not include them in the study.  I also have a stepmother and stepfather, but as far as I could tell from the interviews, and what I remembered from growing up, they did not change anything, with the exception that I did get two more sets of Christmas presents at Christmas.

The first item on the menu is the feast that takes place on Christmas Day.  From my childhood into adulthood, our family has always had a Christmas Day feast, usually containing a small turkey, with a spiral ham, sweet potatoes (butter and brown sugar added to taste), mashed potatoes (I have changed this recipe since getting married, as my wife absolutely abhors mashed potatoes, and have changed it to suit her taste), green beans, corn, gravy, and rolls.  For dessert, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie.  This all leads usually to a food coma in which we all retire to investigate our presents further (after the opening of presents we put them away and begin cooking the food), and an early bed time, fueled by "The Itis."

Now, my grandmother, on my mother's side of the family, told me that when she was in Italy, they would have a Christmas dinner, but, it was not to the extent of what I had growing up.  The dinner consisted primarily of a meat (before she was married she lived on small farm, and usually had chicken instead of turkey or ham), some sort of starch (couldn't remember if it was potatoes or not, thinks so though), asparagus, and bread (not rolls), with dessert consisting of "star cakes" (actual name is Pizzelle).

When she moved to America and was married, at that point the turkey, sweet potatoes and rolls (instead of bread) entered the picture for Christmas dinner.  She still made asparagus, added green beans, and the pizzelle was still for dessert, with pumpkin pie added to the list.  After talking to my mother she said that the feast was the same as what my grandmother had said, and she also noted that there were no left overs afterwards.
My father's side of the family was a bit different.  My grandmother told me that for Christmas dinner they had ham, blutwurst, with mashed potatoes, brussell sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, potato salad (different from regular potato salad, the best way to describe it is to take potatoes, skin, cut into sliced rounds, boiled, drained, and add Italian dressing, although it doesn't taste like Italian dressing, but has the same consistency), and sweet rolls.  There was no dessert, unfortunately.  Now, there is a discrepancy with what my grandmother said and my father (from his memory).  My grandmother reported that there was so much food on the table it would take the seven members of the family (grandfather, grandmother, father, one uncle and three aunts) a week to finish all the leftovers, whereas my father reported that after dinner was over he was always hungry, wanting more.

So, as we can see, when my parents married some things were not made for the dinner (blutwurst, potato salad, brussell sprouts, cauliflower, brocolli), but other things replaced these missing items (turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn) and desserts were added to the menu, new items, pecan pie and apple pie.
Last year was my first year married and for our Christmas dinner we decided to have two frozen pizzas.  The reason for this was that I had to work from 0630 to 1700, and by the time I got home, showered, went to my parents house and the in-laws house, back home it was around 2100, and I just wanted something fast and easy.  This year, however is going to be different, with help from my mother, we have decided to have Christmas dinner on a day we both have off not on Christmas, but on a day that lies near Christmas, either before or after (preferably before).
Through time the dinner has changed, primarily due to functionality, whether it be from lack of ingredients, or the price of ingredients, a merging of family traditions, causing both my mother and father to take some aspects in, while throwing others out, or simply due to scheduling difficulties with time.

My family has always opened one Christmas present on Christmas Eve.  When I was growing up, my family all gathered around the tree and opened a present on Christmas Eve, and was usually something that we had asked for, but wasn't "the ultimate" item on our wishlist, but was significant.
I asked my grandmother on my mother's side of the family and she said that it didn't start with her, and after talking to my mother, she confirmed that it only came to pass when she married my father, so, "no dice" on an explanation on that side of the family.
My grandmother on my father's side of the family confirmed that it did start with her.  In Germany, on December 6th, there is a celebration of Saint Nicholas Day.  On this day, at night children put their shoes outside of their bedroom doors and Saint Nicholas is to come and fill their shoes with goodies (whether it be toys, or candies, it varies from family to family and place to place) if the children have been good, but if the children have been bad that year then Saint Nicholas will leave pine needles, or coal (once again differs) in the shoes.  When my grandmother immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Phoenix she found that many of her neighbors thought that the celebration of Saint Nicholas was demonic, so they stopped observing the holiday.  She did not confess that they replaced it with the opening of one gift on Christmas Eve night, so I am left to project the idea that this is the case.
Last Christmas Eve me and my wife did not open a gift on Christmas Eve, but, after learning about why my family did, I am thinking that this year is going to be different, and I have decided that we (my wife and I) will be following in the footsteps of this tradition.
So, did the tradition change, yes and no, my father still observes this tradition with my little sister, my mother does not (although before marriage she didn't know about it), and last year I did not, but this year will be continuing the tradition.  Why did it change?  One reason was divorce (my mother to my father), the other simply individuality, I didn't see a reason to continue the tradition, so I omitted it, although if it is any consolation, it will be rewritten this year, to continue with my wife and I.

When I was growing up, our house could guide planes to land, we had so many lights on the outside, lights and decorations in the yard, and the inside of the house one could never turn on the heater and still be warm due to the massive amounts of lights and decorations on the walls as well as on the tree.  It was also a time that I hated, I didn't see the point of having so many decorations inside and out, and I really didn't like putting them all up, I did enjoy putting up the tree and decorating it, to a point, there is such a thing as overkill and my family surpasses that.  Our family has always had a fake tree, never a real one, it is something that I never really knew about until just recently.
On my mother's side of the family, decorating for Christmas is a relatively new thing.  My grandmother told me that when she was growing up, they didn't put up decorations, but they did have a small real tree, and what little decorations they did have on that tree were home made by the children (herself included).  It wasn't until she came to the U.S. that she decorated the house inside and out, and put up a big real tree with many ornaments.  My mother confirmed this telling me that, although not as much as my father, they did decorate the house with garland, lights, some lawn decorations, and the tree had about half store bought decorations, and half home made decorations.  It wasn't until she met my father that decorating became a huge ordeal.
After talking with my grandmother on my father's side, and a little research, I found that decorating the Christmas tree started with Germans, and that the blazing sun that is our house does come from this side of the family.  She told me about how her house was lit up like a miniature nuclear reactor on steroids, and talking with my father he did remember putting up so many lights that they had to go through the house and "test load" all the sockets so as to reduce the chances of blowing breakers.  The tree though is a problem, my family uses fake trees, with good reason.  Growing up my grandmother had real fir trees, in the U.S. and when she first got married they had real fir trees, then when my father was born and was diagnosed with asthma and allergies the doctor told them that the pollen from the trees was what was agitating these conditions, so after this information they decided to make the switch to fake trees.  My little brother was diagnosed with asthma and I have allergies to pollen and pet dander, making it impossible to have a real tree as well.
Because I live in an apartment I do not have the outdoor space to "properly adorn" my house as my father would say, and the inside really has nothing decorative, with the exception of the Christmas tree that is moderately decorated.  I have added quite a bit of ornaments to the tree though since doing this project (my grandmother gave me six huge boxes filled with hand crafted, very old, very fragile ornaments).  And I have a fake tree instead of a real fir.
These changes in decorations have changed, but only with me, and for a couple of reasons.  First, I do not have the space to put up a multitude of decorations, and secondly it is a case of individuality, I really do not see the point in putting up huge amounts of decorations so I simply have cut it out of the traditions I wish to carry on.  The reason for changing the tree from real to fake would be one of functionality.  It came down to a choice of, I could have a real tree and suffer from allergy attacks numerous times a day for the time that the tree is in the house, or I could have a fake tree and actually enjoy Christmas, I chose the latter.

The changes within my family's traditions have mostly been functional changes with some selfish reasons here and there, blutwurst with my father, come to find out he hated it, decorations on my part, still can't justify it, but that is the beautiful thing about traditions, they evolve over time, changing to meet the needs of the people that belong to these traditions, while some are a conglomeration of two different peoples coming together and weeding through each one and deciding to keep some while getting rid of others.