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If you step into my parents’ house, the smell of the food hits you first. Turkey, ham, pies, rice, lumpia (egg rolls), pancit (noodles) and more food than you can shake a candy cane at. Loud laughter erupts from the kitchen, the kids and grandkids run around and scream at the top of their lungs as they chase the cat up the stairs and down again. Then you hear my mom tell you in her firm voice,

“Eat! Eat! Eat! Have you eaten yet? No? There’s food in the living room.” If you leave hungry, it’s your fault, and be sure to save some room for dessert. There’s flan, pumpkin pie, jelly rolls galore. My dad stands in the kitchen with a big smile on his face; this is HIS domain, and he’s the king of the stove. This is a man who’s used to cooking for 3000 men on a Navy aircraft carrier, and a small party is about 30 guests. Oh, and you’d better be prepared to take some food home with you to enjoy for later.

My brother and two sisters and their families sit and watch television in the family room, while mom and her friends from work congregate in the living room. My aunts and uncles sit on cushions on the couch, and my sisters’ friends laugh and eat. Oh, and there are the friends of their friends, and friends who should be relatives, but aren’t. There’s hardly any room to move around in the halls.

The tree stands in the family room, all in its lighted glory, with presents spilling out of the bottom of it, presents for the kids and the grandkids, and the relatives and the friends of the relatives and co-workers and the friends who should be relatives but aren’t. You get the idea. Christmas is a time of wonderful chaos at my house. It’s one of only two times of the year when the entire family gets to see one another, since some of us are scattered all over the South. For once, my autistic son Michael is caught up in the parade and is running after the cat with the other kids.

And of course, the whole clan goes to Christmas Mass. Before the grandkids, we all went to Midnight Mass and came home about two in the morning, then we opened presents and spend the morning with our newfound “stuff”, and pass out about 12:30 in the afternoon or so. Now, we attend the Masses that go with our kids’ schedules.

This will be my daughter Christina’s first Christmas, so it’ll be interesting seeing how she’ll take it. The first time my husband Robert came to our house, he admitted he was overwhelmed by all the people and all the food. The next year, we spent Christmas at his parents’ (my in-laws) house, and I quickly realized why he’d felt that way.

His parents are the complete opposite of mine. They spend the holiday, just the two of them, at home, with my mother-in-law cooking a simple dinner and my father-in-law sitting in his chair and watching television. The relative peace and quiet was jarring to my system, and that was putting it mildly. It took several years to get used to it, but eventually, it became an oasis of calm in an otherwise hectic holiday. I learned to savor just being instead of doing, doing, doing.

This year, we’ll be visiting both families, my parents for Christmas and his parents for the days afterwards. A Christmas of extremes, and that’s fine with me.

[tags] Christmas traditions, family traditions, Christmas, holiday celebration, parenting[/tags]

Photo by Thomas Hawk (again!) via Flickr. Beautiful, isn’t it?