With the holiday season in full swing, I often reflect back on our unique family christmas tradition celebrating Christmas. My parents made this a keystone event for my sisters and me. With our parent’s European heritage (Hungary), the focus was on celebrating the birth of Jesus.
Our Unique Family Christmas Tradition–The Preface
As you can imagine as young children, we were very inquisitive. And my parents during this special season made it extra special for us. It all started 2 weeks prior to Christmas Day. To begin with, our living room entrance was covered with a white cloth so you could not see the inside of the room. According to Mom, the Angels did not want to be disturbed when they were decorating and bringing presents to celebrate the birth of Jesus.. Just like the wise men bearing gifts to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, the angels were bearing gifts to well-behaved children (more on that in a moment).
Now you can imagine with that explanation, our imagination went wild. With every little sound we heard from the living room we would think it is the Angels at work. Needless to say, we heard a lot of sounds that probably any other day we probably would not have registered in our ears. But during those 2 weeks, it seemed as there was a lot of activity.
Our Unique Family Christmas Tradition–the Anticipation
You may be wondering, did we ever take a peek into the living room in those two weeks…Absolutely not. Here is the reason why. My Mom told us that if we peeked behind the draped cloth, there would be no presents to open on Christmas Eve. In fact, she told us that Uncle Tibor was caught peeking around the drapery by Grandmom. AS a result, he was the only sibling that year who didn’t get any presents.
That story stayed with us throughout our childhood years! By the way, we did ask Uncle Tibor if that was true….Not that we didn’t believe Mom. He confirmed that this was indeed true and how horrible he felt that Christmas.
Unexpected Pre-Christmas Surprise
One Christmas season both my oldest sister and I were not posture children that year. Shortly after supper, we heard loud knocking at the door. My Mom asked us to see who it was. That was an unusual request from my Mom. Normally she would not allow us kids to answer the doorbell or anyone knocking on the door. But, we dutifully obeyed Mom and checked out who was at the door. Before we even opened the door, we heard our names called to see if this was the house the stranger was looking for.
Who could that be that knew our names. We answered yes and opened the door. To our surprise, the person looked like the devil including a red pitchfork. Dressed completely in a black full-length cloak. His head had red horns coming out of the customized headgear worn made probably covered with silver foil. It sure made an impression on both of us. He told us that we were exceptionally bad throughout the year and that if we didn’t change (be good), he would be back to take us with him before Christmas Day! Needless to say, our behavior did a complete turnabout for the rest of the month.
Mystery of Our Unique Family Christmas Tradition
Just like any child, after that shocking event, we started to wonder who the devil was. We suspected that it was my Uncle Andy but we could not confirm it. Both my parents and all our Uncles denied that they were the culprit. In fact, it wasn’t until my senior year in college (15 years later) that my parents finally confirmed that it was indeed Uncle Andy.
Best Unique Family Christmas Tradition–Ever!
Finally at the end of the two weeks, on Christmas Eve, we were ready to see what was in our living room. To begin the evening, our parents had us wait in the front foyer. After what seemed like an eternity, we were allowed into the living room. The room was beautifully decorated and most importantly, there were presents under the tree. But before unwrapping the presents, we prayed as a family and sang 2 Hungarian Christmas Songs. Then we were finally able to open our presents!
To top off the night, we would attend midnight Mass. To make it even more magical, we would pray (us kids) that when Mass was over, it would be snowing! What a memorable sight, when that happened and it did a number of years since we lived in Northern Ohio near Lake Erie.
In Summary
May every Christmas be a blessing and as enchanting to you as it is for my family! There is nothing better than memorable family Christmas traditions!