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It's Christmas Eve and as I was sitting here thinking about all those gifts I have to wrapped for my kids, I started reminiscing on the Christmases I had as a child. Christmas has always been a favorite of mine, not because of the presents I get.
Growing up on a small island and poor, our Christmases weren't spent going from store to store looking for gifts on a child's list. I remember the only times I got presents as a child was from our school gifts exchange and from church. If ever I get a present from my mom it would be something she made and I always treasured those.
You see, FOOD was the main part of my childhood Christmases. During Christmas {and New Year}, you can find all kinds of food and all the different ways a woman prepares them. This is the time where a woman shows off her talent for cooking. My mom, God rest her soul, was one of the best cook I know. Right around this time, Christmas Eve, she would be making the final gathering of the ingredients for the many dishes she would make and make preparations for some. My dad would be out at sea with my uncles or one of my brothers fishing to add to the list of food. Whichever brothers remain on land would prepping a pig for umu, and climbing coconut tree to get the coconuts for drinking and cooking.
My mom would spent all day Christmas Eve and the night before Christmas making tons and tons of different kinds of food....taro, banana, yam, other starch, fish, pork, beef, chicken and all the different ways you can cook them. I remember staying up to help out and to be her food taster. Just sampling the different dishes was a delightful thing to do.
Finally Christmas morn would come and she would have all the food laid out, practically taken all of our living room spaces with all the different food and then she would fill up these huge basins with different food, usually one for my her mom, one for her in-laws, and then other ones for my sisters-in-law to take to their parents. {Our island Christmas tradition is that the grown children/adults would make the food and take a portion to their parents and/or older siblings. And they (the siblings) would race to see who would reach the parents first.) So my mom would wake us kids, I usually stayed up most of the night helping her so I get to pick whose house I would deliver food to, and to us, the best place to deliver food to was my maternal grandmother's house. Because she lives with my doctor uncle, there were always advantages; grandma always gave out the best treats and of course she always had a gift for the kids who were the food deliverer. Once this is done, we would spent all of Christmas day enjoying each other's company and stuff ourselves with food. It is the one day where chores were ignored and the object of the day was fun, games and food.
Looking back, those times were the best part of my childhood. I have always loved my mom's cooking but Christmas has always been the best because she always made a point to go all out and see her kids enjoy her hard work. I loved everything she made because I know she did all of it out of pure love and joy for her family.
Now that I am married with kids, I try to implement some of that tradition into our home. I am not as good a cook as my mom was but I try. Since my husband also had his own tradition for Christmas, I try to rotate our Christmases. One year, we do it his style and the next year we do mine. For this year, since we would be spending Christmas with friends and pretty do close to what my Christmas was like as a child, we are going to spend our Christmas Eve the way my hubby did it growing up.
With that in mind, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Since I am living in Hawaii, I will wish you all Hawaiian way...
Mele Kalikimaka Haoli Makaiki Hou!!!
Finally Christmas morn would come and she would have all the food laid out, practically taken all of our living room spaces with all the different food and then she would fill up these huge basins with different food, usually one for my her mom, one for her in-laws, and then other ones for my sisters-in-law to take to their parents. {Our island Christmas tradition is that the grown children/adults would make the food and take a portion to their parents and/or older siblings. And they (the siblings) would race to see who would reach the parents first.) So my mom would wake us kids, I usually stayed up most of the night helping her so I get to pick whose house I would deliver food to, and to us, the best place to deliver food to was my maternal grandmother's house. Because she lives with my doctor uncle, there were always advantages; grandma always gave out the best treats and of course she always had a gift for the kids who were the food deliverer. Once this is done, we would spent all of Christmas day enjoying each other's company and stuff ourselves with food. It is the one day where chores were ignored and the object of the day was fun, games and food.
Looking back, those times were the best part of my childhood. I have always loved my mom's cooking but Christmas has always been the best because she always made a point to go all out and see her kids enjoy her hard work. I loved everything she made because I know she did all of it out of pure love and joy for her family.
Now that I am married with kids, I try to implement some of that tradition into our home. I am not as good a cook as my mom was but I try. Since my husband also had his own tradition for Christmas, I try to rotate our Christmases. One year, we do it his style and the next year we do mine. For this year, since we would be spending Christmas with friends and pretty do close to what my Christmas was like as a child, we are going to spend our Christmas Eve the way my hubby did it growing up.
With that in mind, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Since I am living in Hawaii, I will wish you all Hawaiian way...
Mele Kalikimaka Haoli Makaiki Hou!!!
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