Whether you’ve celebrated your holiday this season already or are waiting until this Saturday — this season is (usually) all about family, as is most any holiday.
I have to admit, I am not a Saratoga Springs local — I’m a transplant. From Jersey, originally. (Insert jokes about Jersey Shore and Snooki here). So my new tradition for the Christmas holiday is driving back down south three and a half hours to central New Jersey, where I will most likely be driven up the wall by my parents after oh…..12 hours?
But we all have our own holiday traditions. My family usually goes to my local cousin’s house Christmas Eve and then down to my aunt’s Christmas morning about an hour south of us.
I am an only child, so on Christmas morning, I always would pass out the presents to my parents, actually, I still do!…and we would always open our stocking stuffers first…or is it last? Whatever the case — that was, and is — my family holiday ritual. One of them, at least.
We would also always go Christmas light hunting. There were a couple of neighborhoods that we could depend on for having great holiday lights displays. As far as I know, there was nothing like the Capital Lights display in Albany. Are there any other light displays around here that you go to? Or any areas that always look spectacular for the season?
And what about holiday traditions? Do you always go over the river and through the woods, watch stupid movies and eat Chinese food — what do you and your family do in the holiday season?
There are a few really good Holiday Displays this year. Personally I like the one on North Broadway but I couldn’t figure out which radio station to tune too.
We are a blended family. For almost 10 years, we all get together on Christmas Eve, put on Christmas socks, order Chinese food and open presents and look at pictures of how our family has changed and grown over the past years. Now that we’re digital, we use the big flat screen as a digital photo frame that runs our family photos in the background.
All the kids (and now their significant others) love this tradition, especially since it doesn’t compete with the ‘command performances’ on Christmas day!
Our family tradition is to make an ornament from a slice of the bottom of each year’s tree. We dry it for 2 days, then wood burn the year and maybe a little star or special word. We attach a screw-in eye hook, polyurethane it, and hang it in it’s place on a long red ribbon which we display next to this years tree. We have 20 yrs worth of these special memories.