The Hamilton family Christmases are steeped in tradition. A bit strange for a family that doesn't celebrate much of anything (birthdays? weddings? anniversaries? all of these mostly fall by the way-side), because the matriarch of said family doesn't like to celebrate occasions that mark each passing year as being significant. Even The-Happiest-Day-Of-The-Year almost fell by the wayside a few years ago, once she realized that we were all just a bit too mature for Ole' St. Nick to pay us visits anymore.

When we were kids Christmas was quite the celebration in our house. There was lots of baking (there will always be lots of baking among the Hamilton women) and Christmas music chimed from every available speaker in the house.

Some years we even headed far north to the cottage, my parents loading three or four children in the back of a station wagon and trekking through sleet and snow, enduring an over-heated car, kids vomiting in the back seat and losing our small-ish dog in the snow (that literally piled up to over 7 feet in some areas near our cottage). We would hunt and hunt for the perfect tree, stay the night and then bring it home the next morning. Set up in their living room, its back to the French doors, the lights, along with decorations gathered over years of Christmases past would twinkle twice, reflected in the darkened windows. Presents would pile so high beneath that tree that sometimes the 8-footer would be more than half obscured.

My grandparents would arrive on Christmas Eve, toting gifts for everyone. We would order Chinese food and we'd sit, stuffed full of egg rolls and chicken balls and my Grandfather would read me T'was the Night Before Christmas before we hung our stockings by the fireplace and headed up to bed (with my father whispering in our ears "the sooner you go to bed, the sooner Santa will come!"). We slept fitfully that night and awoke, to my father's voice (talking to the dog) asking if we were going to get up soon to see what Santa had brought.

Other years we spent on my grandparents tree nursery near London, Ontario; my mom going there on the train a few days before Christmas, usually with three or four of us in tow. Again with the baking and music, but the fun was compounded by at least six or seven cousins, a smattering of second cousins, friends of cousins, aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles. Christmas Eve my father would drive up with my oldest brother and we would (again!) order Chinese food for dinner, gorge ourselves and then settle down for a long winter's nap, after forcing my grandfather to read me T'was the Night Before Christmas for the umpteenth time. My brother and sister and I (back when we were the only ones who still believed in Santa) would get up super early and open our stockings together, quietly, waiting for the adults to get up so we could venture downstairs to see what great things Santa had brought in the night.

Christmas mornings in either home were filled with squeals of delight and laughter, happiness, warmth, grown-ups drinking coffee, my grandfather making bacon and eggs for everyone for breakfast, cousins, friends, candy canes, wrinkly lights and lots and lots of love. It was always a time of year that I adored, no matter what I got for Christmas, because even then, that wasn't the focus; it was everything else. The food, the family times, the time off from school and time with my parents while they were off work. Going to see Santa at Eaton's and having Chinese food afterwards and walking back to the car, feeling full of food and such happiness that I could never imagine it ever being any different.

Many of these traditions have survived in one way or another and have metamorphosed now that we're grown, some of us starting families of our own. Last night was in many ways no different than Christmases of long ago - dinner at my parents with most of us "kids" (and our significant others) gathered around the living room, enjoying a delicious Chinese food and then the newest addition to our Christmas traditions: THE GAME.

But for that story you'll have to tune in later.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!