Unwrapping Holiday Traditions: An Exploration of Comfort and Joy

Have you ever experienced the magic of the Morton Arboretum's illumination of lights? Or the thrill of picking your own Christmas tree at a farm? Come along with me, your host, Marcy Backhus, as I navigate the joyous holiday season, sharing snippets from my exhilarating life, from my ongoing home remodel to my enchanting experiences. I'll take you on a heartwarming journey exploring holiday traditions that span cultures and how they bring comfort, joy, and meaning to our lives.

Let's ignite the holiday spirit together as we dive into the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, the fun of a Christmas movie marathon, and explore the magic of visiting a Christmas tree farm. We'll also discuss the controversial Elf on the Shelf tradition and the use of nutcrackers as decorations. Cherish the holiday season, and find joy and meaning in your own traditions. Let's celebrate the holiday season, reminisce about old memories, honor loved ones who have passed away, and look forward to creating new ones. Let's embrace the holidays, the traditions, and, most importantly, each other.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the AG Name for Sissy's podcast. My name is Marcy Backus and I am your host. Well, it's that time of year, we're busy, things are hopping, things are popping and I am here doing my podcast, again late at night on a Sunday night, but it seems to be my witching hour now. I seem to have switched from morning person to night person. With that being said, what are we going to talk about this week? Well, I'll let you know what's going on with me, catch up on what's happening, and then we're going to talk about holiday traditions. I'm going to mention some of them, talk about some of my own, hopefully give you some ideas if you don't have any traditions already, and if you do, I hope you enjoy the holidays. So sit back, relax, get something to drink and we will be off and running. Well, what's been up with me? Well, as you know, I was in California and then I came back home. Our remodel was supposed to have been done this week, but we always know that doesn't always happen, but it's only a few days behind, so we'll be moving back in on Wednesday, the 20th of December. Everything looks great, everything is wonderful. They need to clean and they're doing that and I'm very excited, very excited. It's funny enough, being married to an architect. This will be the first home we've ever done any remodeling of any sort. We've added paint or we've changed flooring, but we've never actually changed tiles, fixtures etc. So for me this is very exciting. I'm looking forward to it. A great way to start the holiday with a beautiful kitchen and a beautiful bathroom, which I've already seen pictures and just definitely are.

Speaker 1: 1:50

So when I got home from California, I went back to my mother-in-law's home out in the suburbs and been out here. It's different. The suburbs are much different than the city. I do miss my city life, I miss my activity. I definitely miss my exercising. I'm looking forward to getting back home and getting back into our routine. The cats are enjoying it out here, I'll tell you that much. My one cat loves to watch the birds and the squirrels and we took him for a little walk this week out in the woods with his harness and his leash and he loved that and now thinks he should be out there all the time, which he can't.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I hope your week has been good. I've done a little bit of Christmas shopping out here. I will tell you, though, being out of my house for two and a half weeks, right into the middle of December has really messed up my Christmas preparations. I did decorate the house a couple of weeks early, knowing that we would be out of the house for a couple of weeks and be in a non-decorated house Although my sister-in-law has popped a few things in here to give me a bit of the Christmas spirit and I do appreciate that. But it's not the city and it's not downtown and it's not what I've become accustomed to. So getting back home will be very exciting.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Let's see what else went on this week. Well, it's kind of a quiet week. Craig left today. He'll be gone for three days. That's why we're not moving back until Wednesday and my son will be coming in next Saturday. I'm hoping to get a new episode out next week. You don't know, with the holidays I may just give myself a break and enjoy the holiday. I hope you're doing that too.

Speaker 1: 3:37

We went this evening. I went with my sister-in-law and her, their Craig and her cousin Sue. So Sue Deb and I went to the Morton Arboretum. So as we talk about holiday traditions and things like this, I'm sure they have things like this where you live. So the Morton Arboretum. Is Morton salt who you think it is? It was their home at one time and their grounds Amazing, huge property is now the Morton Arboretum and it's beautiful and they do this illumination of lights which they do on these pine trees. It's just. It's one of those things you have to see to believe. It's a mile walk, a mile loop of all different types of lights and a field of lights and this and that, and then they have areas where the kids can control the lights and it was very fun. We went out for dinner beforehand and I think what a fun tradition the three of us girls spending it together and enjoying this, and it was delightful. This coming up a week we are going Craig and I will be going to the Zoo Lights another one of our traditions.

Speaker 1: 4:47

And other than that it's there's not a lot to report. Health is good, life is good. Craig is busy. He's getting busier, which makes me happy because it keeps him out of my hair. Those of you that are retired, with retired husbands, know that occasionally you get in each other's hair. I'm not going to say I don't get in his hair, because I'm sure I do, but Craig seems to like to be with me a lot and I do like my space. So the fact that his work is gearing up right now with a huge project is a good thing. He does work part-time so no matter how busy the project gets, his hours pretty much stay the same. So that's all I've got to catch us up on.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Like I said, not too exciting. Everything's going well, feeling good. I was great to do the mile walk at the Arboretum tonight. A year ago I couldn't have done it. So the things I'm trying to notice, the things that have changed in me for the good, and I appreciate that and I enjoy that, and I think sometimes you have to look back to enjoy moving forward in things that are. My body is in better shape, my mind is in better shape, I'm in better shape, and it makes a world a difference Looking at a year ahead to some travel and getting excited about that. The first big trip we have is in April to Greece. It will be replacing our trip to Israel that we lost out on for obvious reasons. So that's it on that.

Speaker 1: 6:21

So let's sit back, get ready, take a moment and we're gonna talk about traditions, holiday traditions. You can be any religion, you can be anything you want to be and still have holiday traditions, so let's talk about it, okay, holiday traditions, tradition, tradition I always think of that from sorry I don't sing well, but I think of that from Fiddler on the Roof. Traditions are important. You can have traditions all year long, but the holiday seems a time when families have most of their traditions, and I was thinking about some of the ones I set forth for my kids, and one of them was Church Christmas Eve. For sure, we are an open-presence Christmas Eve family, so after church we always went out for Chinese food. For most of the years we went to Wan Fu in Rancho Santa Margarita and then we head home to open our Christmas gifts. Craig always put holiday music on. He usually makes fresh egg nog, which freaks me out with raw eggs, but nonetheless he makes fresh egg nog.

Speaker 1: 7:30

And then we're a big Christmas stocking family, and I think I shared on here that the reason stockings are so important is because my parents made mine important to keep me busy and to allow everybody to sleep in. So I've always made Christmas stockings very plentiful, full of gifts, always wrapped and fun. And then our Christmas breakfast was always monkey bread and sausage. So I always made monkey bread and then grilled up fresh breakfast sausage and that was our tradition Christmas Day. When we lived in Texas, christmas Day we always went to the movies.

Speaker 1: 8:14

As the kids got older they wanted to just be home and do their thing or play with their video game. Whatever they got, they wanted to be home. So we didn't do that so much. Usually I make prime rib, yorkshire pudding and cream corn for Christmas Day dinner and those are some of our traditions. We would try to go look for Christmas lights or we'd go to zoo lights or do something like that, depending. We lived a lot of different places so traditions might change depending on where we live. But those were those were our hard, fast rules for Christmas traditions right there.

Speaker 1: 8:54

When Kyle was in high school, her orchestra always played in San Juan Capistrano down by the Mission for the Tree Lighting. So that was a tradition for that period of time when Kyle was an orchestra and she played the cello and that was always fun to go down there, especially in such a historic town as San Juan Capistrano. That's where the Swallows fly back to that mission and go for the lighting of that Christmas tree. So I hope this has gotten you in your head starting thinking about some of your traditions. So here are some of the most popular traditions and we'll talk about them. Watch the tree lighting ceremony. So wherever you live, your downtown normally has a tree lighting ceremony. Chicago has a big one. We did not go to the tree lighting ceremony, but we did go to the Christmas parade and we've done that the two years we've lived there. That is the parade that goes down Michigan Avenue and as Mickey Mouse goes down he throws his arms up and a block of lights go on and he continues his way down and for a Disney lover like me, that is everything. So that is really exciting. Nowadays there's a lot of festive holiday restaurants. A lot of restaurants or bars do like over the top Christmas and holiday in there, and that's something fun to do if you are into that.

Speaker 1: 10:17

I did this for several years when we lived in Kododakaza. A start, a Christmas cookie exchange, and for several years I just invited women who I thought were amazing women. They'd come to my home. They'd bring two or three dozen cookies and then we'd share the cookies, we'd eat the cookies and have coffee, and I'd have coffee and cider and tea and then we'd enjoy cookies and then at the end everybody would box up cookies to take home. It's a great way to bake one type of cookie and end up with a lot. Our church also did this. But this was something I did with the women in my life and women that I admired maybe not women that I saw all the time, but they were in my life, either through scouting or some way, and I just really liked them and it was a nice time to get together and spend time.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Go to a holiday market. Well, as you know, europe is known for its Christmas markets and, as a matter of fact, the same cousin and the same sister-in-law that I went out with tonight, next holiday season we will be cruising down the Rhine doing all of the Christmas markets in Germany, there and Switzerland, I believe. So that's exciting, but you will find that in the United States, a lot of big cities are doing these Christmas markets. I know they have it the Kris Kringle Market in Chicago and it's gotten so big they've expanded it to two other locations, so there's three locations for it. Look in your town and see if there is one of those wonderful Christmas markets.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Go ice skating. Funny enough, that was my sport when I was young. I am too old now to ice skate. The chances of getting hurt are way too high. But take your kids skating or, if you haven't been skating for a while and you are younger than I, am, go skating. In Chicago, here in Daily Park I think it is, they have a ribbon. It's called an ice skating ribbon. It's like a stream or a river had frozen and it's very beautiful and they call it the ribbon.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Okay, now, this is something a great tradition making hot chocolate. Make hot chocolate from scratch. Melting the chocolate. Get away from those packets, maybe. Make some homemade marshmallows. Make that a tradition. Homemade hot chocolate and homemade marshmallows. What a that's a good one.

Speaker 1: 12:44

Create an advent calendar. If you don't have one, create your own with something that you enjoy or your grandkids would enjoy. Don't buy one, make one. And there's all kinds of things out there. Go all out for Christmas Eve dinner, and that's what I've done in the past with the prime rib and that was my go all out dinner, and it was always just for family. So it's funny when you do big meals or parties, which I used to give a lot of parties and things like that. It's stressful when you're cooking for a group, but it's so funny, when you do a Christmas dinner just for your immediate family, how the pressure is taken off and the joy of cooking comes back. So do a great Christmas Eve dinner. This year, our new tradition since we've moved to Chicago this will be the second year of the tradition is that my sister-in-law comes down to the city and we played games and then we went out for dinner, and we will do the same this year, but my son will be visiting. So now this is.

Speaker 1: 13:50

I have never been one for special ornaments. I have some special ornaments. I don't have a lot of special ornaments, but even if you don't have a Christmas tree or you don't want to put them on a Christmas tree, create somewhere to display your fabulous ornaments. I don't know why. I'm not a big ornament person on the tree either. I'm really a lights person. I love lights, so the more lights the better.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Make Christmas breakfast, like I told you. I have our tradition and I'll do it this year as always monkey bread and if you don't know what monkey bread is, look it up and breakfast sausage. So I will do that. And as the kids got older, I did two monkey breads, so that Craig and I because we got up earlier and they were teenagers and slept in. We could have our monkey bread and sausage and a fresh monkey bread and then when the kids got up, I had a fresh monkey bread for them. So, again, things change as families change. Take fun family holiday photos. You know we've never done that, but a lot of people do in jammies and this and that, or out in the woods, or find a great tradition of taking a great family holiday photo, something I wished I had done. We never did it, so it might be something that for you is a great tradition, or you add it to your tradition the sending of Christmas cards or letters or holiday letters, or if you're not celebrating Christmas or anything, how about a New Year's letter? Everybody celebrates the New Year, so you could come up with a New Year's letter. This year Ours is going to be a New Year's letter because I am so far behind, losing this two and a half weeks of not being home, so I'm a little bit behind.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Oh, celebrate Sinterklaas in early December. Sinterklaas, also known as St Nicholas Day, is celebrated on December 5th, when sent traditionally leaves a small gift, a sweet or a poem in the shoes of Dutch children. Oh, I have a Dutch sister-in-law. I never heard of this one. Gifts are often elaborately disguised as other objects Very cute. So St Nicholas Day, december 5th, celebrate that. Have your kids put their shoes outside their room and put a little something in there. Doesn't have to be a big deal, just something simple and something fun. Choose a fun tree topper If you're not into the star, put a dinosaur on the top of your tree, a pink flamingo. Make the top of the tree something fun. Make the top of the tree something that the kids create every year. Make it something different every year instead of always being the same. I think that's a great idea. Host a Christmas movie marathon. Well, last year, while we were playing games during Christmas Day, we had one of the channels on that was playing different Christmas movies and that was very fun. There are so many great Christmas movies out there.

Speaker 1: 16:57

And let's see, visit a Christmas tree farm. Now, this is something, a tradition that we had when we lived in Oregon. So in Oregon we had a farm that we went to every Sunday, I think, after church, and as the season changed, sunflowers would be there, they had goats, we would go all the time and we'd cut flowers and then at Halloween time they had the pumpkins. So we'd get the pumpkins, but on the same day we'd drive a little further to a Christmas tree farm. Now think about it. In Oregon, in the fall the weather is much more beautiful than in December, so you were allowed to go tag your tree and then you would call the day in December. You were coming the day before. You'd let them know you were coming the next day. They would freshly cut your tree, have it ready and put it on your car. So we got the fun of always picking our pumpkins and our tree on the same day. So that was our tradition. It was in Sherwood, oregon. So, as I tell you, as we move and kids grow up, sometimes traditions change and because we moved, we couldn't do the same tradition, so things changed. So visit a real Christmas tree farm. If you've never gone to one and cut down your own tree, okay, this one.

Speaker 1: 18:10

I am not all about this elf on the shelf. I'm not about the elf on the shelf. If you are an elf on the shelf, family, god bless you. That whole thing wasn't around with my kids and I don't enjoy it. I also don't enjoy the next one on this list is use a nutcracker. The nutcrackers creep me out, don't like them and I don't like the nutcracker play. But that's a tradition for a lot of families to go see the nutcracker, but not my thing again. But if it's yours, whoop, whoop.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Let's see what else we got here. Start a holiday themed collection. If you wanna collect, small like a village, start it. And each year your kids get a piece of the village and that's my mom did that for my kids and each one of them has a Christmas village. Trying to think of where Alex is, if we boxed it up for him or if Kyle took it.

Speaker 1: 19:06

I can't remember when we moved. Okay, going caroling that was another tradition we had in Orange County. Our church went caroling to different senior citizens' homes and it was the best and we went out for pizza afterwards. I loved that tradition. I missed that tradition. It was amazing and I think COVID put a kibosh on that. I'm hoping maybe they can do it again. I'm not sure if you're allowed to.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Even now there's the traditional pickle ornament that a lot of moms and dads hide in the tree the Christmas pickle tradition. It's a murky how it started. Experts believe that the glass gherkin ornaments have been hung on American Christmas trees since the late 1800s. So there you go. Let's see any other traditions that I think. Well, this one says everybody open one present on Christmas Eve. I guess if you're a Christmas Day opener, craig and I are very blessed.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Both of our families were Christmas Eve openers of packages, so we didn't have to blend two traditions. Our tradition was the same. It's hard when you get married. Sometimes you gotta change those traditions. Honor a loved one, honor somebody that has passed away, and your grandparents have special ornaments on the tree for them, and I think that's something lovely to honor people that are no longer with us. Craig's family does wreaths Christmas wreaths and on Christmas Eve or Christmas day Eve they go put them on everybody's gravestone. So you may have your own tradition for people that have passed on. Well, those are some of the traditions. It reminded me of some of mine.

Speaker 1: 21:00

I hope that your holidays are full of traditions, and if not, I also. I like change, so I'm not the kind of person that wants to do the same thing over and over again. So if you're like me and things have changed and you don't have traditions, I agree that I think that's just fine. But traditions are nice and talking with you today and going on this, doing this podcast about it, brought back a lot of memories for me. So I hope part of the idea of my podcast is to get you thinking and I hope that this got you thinking a little bit about tradition. And if your kids are all grown up and, like me, you don't have grandkids yet, you can still have traditions. Craig and I are still having them and still finding them. You know, we've gone to the Walnut Room the last two Christmases here in Chicago and it's a great place. They have a big tree in it, kind of like that themed restaurant thing that we've talked about. So and we've been to the parade. So you can create your own traditions, your new traditions.

Speaker 1: 22:04

The fact is is just to be with people you love, spend time with the people you care about. That's not about the biggest, the best and the newest. It truly is about relationships and sometimes during the year those relationships suffer, those relationships end and sometimes you've got new relationships. The holiday is a time to appreciate everything. I appreciate you as my listening audience and I'm hoping to grow this next year. I have some plans I'm going to put in place and we'll see if we can get bigger than this, but if we don't, I enjoy those of you that listen and I enjoy putting this podcast on. It's something that means a lot to me and it's part of my new tradition. So have a great week.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Next week's episode may be a repeat, may not, just depends on how I feel. Christmas Eve is Sunday and Christmas Day is Monday and those are my days, so we'll see how it goes. Happy holidays. If I don't, well, I won't talk to you till after the holiday. So happy holidays to everybody that's celebrating and to those of you that have already celebrated Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. Blessings to all of you and your families, and remember what I always say aging and persisting.