A Ratterman Holiday
The holidays are wrapping up, and holidays often bring a lot of stress and anxiety for many households.
Where do we celebrate?
Who’s bringing what?
What time to we need to be at which house?
We’ve really perfected the holidays in our household, which makes for much happier and less stressful celebrations.
Even though Jeff and I were raised in different faiths (me being Jewish and Jeff raised Catholic), we decided when we got married to raise our children Jewish. It was a decision we made early on and one that both of our families respect and honor. But Christmas is an important part of Jeff’s past and his family so we do still participate in his family’s celebrations.
We always celebrate the Jewish holidays with my family and spend Christmas at my in-law’s house with Jeff’s family. We have come to love spending this time together because it’s a bonding time for us, with family from both sides welcomed and present.
Hanukkah is from December 24 to January 1 this year, so we celebrated while we were at Jeff’s parents’ house for Christmas Eve. They don’t celebrate with us, but they’re very respectful of our traditions and will watch. It’s a great lesson in tolerance and patience for our kids. Since we typically spend Christmas Eve with Jeff’s parents anyway, it was a bonus celebration for us.
This year we woke up Christmas morning, opened gifts with my in-laws, nieces and nephews and then took our yearly Christmas Day hike in the afternoon. Then we enjoyed our traditional evening dinner with both sides of the family. It was a wonderful day!
At home and with my family, we observe the Jewish holidays and traditions. We’ll get together with my parents and sister and her kids one night during Hanukkah every year for a present exchange and dreidel spinning contest. Of course, we’ll also eat (so many!) traditional foods like latkes and spend time together giving thanks.
Of course, we do still have a little Christmas fun at home. Our neighborhood is one of those that’s in the newspaper for having the best holiday lights in Phoenix, so we put Christmas lights up outside. I even went to the trouble to borrow and set up a Christmas tree the first year we were married. It sure was pretty (but oh, what a pain taking it down was!). Now we just help my in-laws decorate their tree and enjoy the beautiful lights when we are at their house.
What are your family’s traditions? What do you celebrate? I’d love to hear about any old (or new) traditions that you do to celebrate this beautiful time of year as a family.
