Celebrating with adult children

As family situations change, ways of celebrating holidays evolve. Since my husband and I and two sons don’t have any other relatives living in our state, the four of us celebrate Christmas at home. This means we have a quiet holiday which we like.

Now that our sons are adults and have moved out, my husband and I are not wakened at 4 a.m. by boys jumping on our bed, which we kind of miss. Instead, we all gather at a reasonable hour at our family hacienda on Christmas day, to spend time together, exchange gifts and enjoy a companionable meal. We each have a red felt stocking hung on the mantel, and our cats have their own stocking.

The cats’ stocking contains a can of tuna, the kind we eat, not pet food tuna, and I always manage to find a small size gift for each stocking, like a wool ski cap or gloves. One tradition is that Mrs. Santa (that’s me) buys 2 sacks of gold foil covered chocolate coins for the stockings, which is a Jewish tradition, symbolizing prosperity for the new year.

So with our sons, we continue all of the basic family Christmas traditions at our house.