For years, I spent the day after Thanksgiving at my great Aunt Kass's house. She lived 2 doors up from my house in Dormont and is practically my 3rd grandmother. As she got older it became harder for her to get lights and a tree up herself. So we did it with her!
She would cook a huge meal (yes, another huge meal the day after we just ate a huge meal), and we would bring all the decorations out and dress up her house. Different family members would come in and out as the day went on and it would never be the same crowed year after year. It all depended who was around and not getting in on Black Friday deals. This year, she is 92 years old. I went over to her nursing home with my mom and set up her little tree and all her Christmas knick-knacks. The past few years she has not been able to cook a huge meal, so I brought over some Arby's, and we decorated just like we had for the past 25 years before that. I recall being 15 years old and complaining about having to put up her decorations, as any teen would. Now that I am older, I am very thankful for those days spent together.
On Christmas eve The Kmick family goes to church, has a gag gift exchange and eats breakfast for dinner. That's right breakfast - dippy eggs, bacon, sausage, bagels and the like.
For as long as I can remember we have rotated the festivities between my house, my dad's sister's and my dad's brother's house. We start the evening at a Christmas Eve mass, rarely going to the same church every year. After mass we head to someone's house to hang out, eat, and goof around.
Usually there is a ham in the oven and the guy of the house starts cooking the eggs shortly after everyone arrives. It's always been a joke about how many dippy eggs can be made without breaking a yolk. Someone is put on toast duty and is in charge of toasting and buttering, this person can't fall behind and must have toast ready when eggs are ready!
Breakfast is usually filled with a lot of joking around, sarcasm and making fun of one another - all stemming from love for each other, of course.
After dinner we lounge around watching movies and have a gag gift exchange. This is where things usually get crazy. Each person brings a gag gift to exchange, anywhere from $0-$20. We rotate around the room, usually oldest to youngest opening, trading and stealing gifts. Over the past 5 years or so a huge jar of pickles has shown up in the gift exchange hidden in boxes or bags. It also evolved into being hidden in someones house. At this point I have no idea who has the pickles, but they would probably kill you if you ate them.
Here's a few good gag gift pics...
Somewhere along the line, outdoor lights and decorations started to be stolen from each others houses and put up somewhere else, in the middle of the night. One year, an 8-foot reindeer was handmade from wood and put up in my Uncle Toms front yard. A few years ago half the family surrendered, in the hopes that their candy cane lights would not be stolen in the middle of the night.
Towards the end of the night all the cousins get on the couch for a photo. We have pictures ever year from about 1979 on. Every so often a cousin or two misses a picture - with my brother being in the Navy and my cousin rotating holidays with his wife's family there's a few years where all 8 of us are not shown.
Some winners...
I can imagine as we all get older and start to get married it will be hard to capture all of us in these pictures. I love that my cousins wife and Jake spend holidays with us. It's nice to see our family grow and our Christmas Eve traditions passed onto our own families.
Jake loves these Kmick traditions and we plan to carry them into our family along with Cooper family traditions - we wouldn't have it any other way!
To Grandmother's House we go, literally...
Christmas day has traditionally been with my mom's side of the family. My Gram and Pap live in Indiana, PA, so we usually take the 2 hour drive through the country and spend the day there. When Adam and I were little we would stay a few days there over the holidays. I have a lot of great memories at their house - good food, warm fireplace, fun presents and the Festival of Lights tour in Blue Spruce park. It's nice to be out of the city, in fresh country air and with my grandparents.
11 days to go!
I hope everyone is getting pumped up for time with loved ones, food, gifts and time off from work!
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