How Family Celebrations Make Holidays Special

It largely depends on the Holiday.

New Years is celebrated with the family getting together and that’s when I make my version of Posole.

Easter is spent in church and with Family.

Thanksgiving. Pretty much the same story.

July 4th? Like so many Vets, the noise isn’t one of my favorite things, so we stay home and watch Independence Day.

Christmas.

Now that where I go big or go home. Lights everywhere. Lasers paint the house. Lighted wreaths fill the windows and almost every room has a Christmas tree.

Last year we had so many lights, the folks from SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) showed up to get pointers on signaling alien civilizations.

Our Christmas traditions start with church. At Christ Community Church, we normally have four services on Christmas Eve. For the Security Team that I run, it’s an all hands on deck exercise. I have four or five guys on each shift, plus a couple of guys inside. I usually work two of the services and go in with my family for the third.

The church is always decorated and cookies abound.

But we do have to be careful. The Grinch has been known to make an appearance in the lobby. Of course, Cindy Lu is there to keep him in check. Besides, the police officers who work with us have always said they’d be happy to blind him with pepper spray if he got out of line.

Then we adjourn to our house. We have nachos and goodies, play games, and then we open presents. When we first started doing this, we’d opened presents at midnight. It’s been getting earlier and earlier every year and one day soon, we’ll open presents on the 4th of July.

On actual Christmas day, we go to my daughters house for dinner. Minas, her husband, is Greek. What does that have to do with anything? He makes Prime Rib for Christmas, and he turns out some of the best meat ever. I mentioned his genetic background because I have never encountered a bad steak, chop, chop, or cheeseburger turned out by someone who is Greek.

I think it’s wired in.

Everyone brings something and a good time is had by all.