Hello! It’s the middle of November and my mom wants to put up the Christmas lights! I celebrate Christmas, but in a very family oriented way.

To start: Each year my family celebrates Christmas, but my close family, like my parents and I, host a “Christmas Eve curry”. On Christmas Eve we invite all our close family and friends to come to our house. We do a sort of thing where everybody brings something. It’s called a potluck. It didn’t start as a curry, but after a few years we found out that almost everybody likes this type of food.

My parents send out an invite around the start-middle of November, and then they RSVP with each other and everybody who’s coming to make sure we don’t have the same food twice. We do lots of types of Indian foods and my personal favorite are the pappadams. Pappadams are kind of like really crispy and salty chips. They are the size of a dinner plate and they taste really good!

Here is how the day goes:

1. I try to sleep in but I am forced to get up and clean the house 😉

2. I clean the house and probably read a book for a while

3. My parents are in a rush to make food and my mom usually cuts herself with a knife. (She always does that when we are having guests)

4. I get dressed into slightly nicer cloths.

5. Around 20 minutes before it starts my grandparents arrive

6. My cousin who is my age arrives

7. We catch up and talk for a few minutes

8. Our friends who have twin boys that are 3 arrive (they are usually late). Me and my cousin are charged with making sure they don’t get into trouble

9. We start to eat dinner. Me and my cousin are put at the “kids table” because there’s not enough room at the normal table

10. Dinner passes in a blur and it’s time to exchange presents. Not everybody exchanges presents but the kids usually get 3 or 4 things.

11. We look at the “Santa tracker” to see when Santa is coming.

12. Everybody leaves and I go to bed to clean up the next morning.

And that’s it! My favorite holiday/day of the year.

 

Here is a picture of a wooden Christmas tree that I made when I was six years old.

I quite vividly remember picking out the stickers very carefully and then putting them on this tree in exactly the right spot. I really thing I had fun colouring this tree. Every Christmas I try to put it out and then I remember all the different stickers!

 

A poem about Christmas Eve:

Snow may or may not be falling outside

Children do not frolic, they just scream

Christmas music does not fill the air.

Again, back to the screaming

Family argues over who made the best food

We are together

We are happy

We are family!