Traditions.

Today the weather has been very similar to yesterday starting with the 'super moon' casting its light across the waves. (I wasn't tempted to sit outside this morning but  took the photo standing in the doorway and then headed back to bed with my tea.) 

The morning brought more snow on the hills, wintry showers and some sun in the afternoon.

My task for today was to take down the Christmas decorations. I enjoy seeing our home decorated for Christmas and for me that should be up until Twelfth Night (or as near as). I think it is less to do with following English traditions seeing as I do not come from an English family but more about enjoying the holiday for the whole of the time the boys and I did not have to be in school and is something I have carried on.

 

In fact because of various circumstances my Christmas didn't feature much in my childhood. We would always go to mass and sometimes were invited to our traditional Christmas Eve meal or maybe to spend Christmas Day with other people but that was about it.

When I had my own family I was determined to celebrate the holiday and give our boys a magical Christmas by creating our own traditions even on a shoestring. 

The tradition of not putting up the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve came into being because finances were tight and trees were cheap or sometimes free the closer you got to Christmas. When the boys were small I would hide the tree in the garden so that it was a surprise when they got up on Christmas morning to see the fully decorated tree in the sitting room. Later the tree would go up in the week before Christmas but not be decorated until Christmas Eve. Then I began bringing home the enormous school tree at the end of term. And how I loved to decorate the tree. Everything carefully chosen from my ever increasing store of red, silver or crystal decorations bought in the January sales. I downsized my stash when we moved but there are still enough decorations in the loft for a full-sized tree. 

When we moved to our Devon farmhouse the boys made decorations for the rooms and the garden provided plenty of greenery for swags and other décor. 

Before the traditional Christmas Eve meal I would take the boys on a long walk (Pete was usually working) and after the meal we would go to Midnight Mass in the village church. By the time we got home for hot chocolate the boys were totally ready to sleep. Then followed much wrapping of tiny presents for the boys' stockings. These they opened as soon as they woke which gave us a bit of time to sleep. Presents under the tree were opened after breakfast. Christmas dinner was usually roast chicken as I found by experience that a turkey only just fitted into the small Rayburn oven and that oven just did not do roast potatoes. Fingers had to be crossed that the wind wasn't blowing in the wrong direction because then the oven temperature would drop even more. The final tradition was that once the Christmas dinner went on the table my work was done for the day. At that point I couldn't care what happened in the kitchen afterwards.

Today I took down everything except the lights in the windows and tried to organise packing away the decorations in a way that makes it easier to put them out next year. 

While it was sunny in the afternoon I went down and dismantled the large, sagging driftwood tree by the garden gate. Now I have a whole year to find the correct metal rod or at least acquire a suitable replacement as the rod I used just wasn't up to the job.