Youth News: Family Tradition Is Christmas Highlight

MEG SCHROEDER, GB Youth Board

Published: December 23, 2004

The turkey’s been wrapped in foil and put in the fridge along with the leftover sweet potatoes and cornbread stuffing. My extended family relaxes in my grandma’s family room, with the day after Thanksgiving flyers in all their hands. We all look for bargains on DVD players and CDs, but only one thing is on my dad’s and my mind—Christmas lights.

Ever since I can remember my dad has never gone “light” on the lights (pardon the pun). My family has lived in three houses, and each one has been decked out in festive lighting for every Christmas. I remember being about 4 years old and waking up from my afternoon nap during December and begging my mom to turn the Christmas lights on for the night. It has always gotten me in a jovial mood.

Since then, we have moved to Atlanta and my dad has covered the house here with more lights than any of the other ones. Shortly after Thanksgiving, I can hardly wait to hold the 20-foot extension ladder for my dad as he ascends it to hang the icicle lights from the gables on our house. When that is complete, my dad, mom, brother and I attack the hedges, bushes and short trees in the front garden with white lights. My mom puts candles and wreaths with red bows in all of the front and side windows, and her nine-foot tree, covered in bird ornaments, is assembled in the foyer.

Our house would just be a house covered in white lights, if it were not for the most important element of the display. My dad will have me balance the extension ladder on the tree as he hangs a star on it. Strings of white lights come down from the star and compose the backdrop to the illuminated Nativity scene, complete with stable and hay. It resembles the Nativity scene that has always rested in the front yard of my paternal grandparents’ home.

My grandfather, George, taught my dad everything that he knows about Christmas lights. My dad has told me stories of how George would climb to the top of even the tall, skinny trees in order to cover them with lights. George was not only a spreader of electric lights but also a spreader of Christmas tradition. He is now with God in Heaven, but when I was younger, I remember him dressing up as St. Nick, not Santa, and going around his Cincinnati town and handing out nuts and oranges to all the children, just as St. Nick did. George seemed to find the perfect balance between being secular and Catholic during Advent.

It is ironic how we as Catholics are supposed to be reflecting on our faith preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas, while secular society is telling us that Christmas is a month-long marathon of department store sales, mall Santas and dancing snowmen. A few of the young children in my neighborhood know who to celebrate though. One girl has told her mother that she wanted to come to our house to hold baby Jesus.

She has the mentality that we all should have during Advent and Christmas.

Meg Schroeder is a sophomore at Blessed Trinity High School and a parishioner at St. Peter Chanel Church, both in Roswell.