Happy Christmas Eve

This is going to be a long, mostly personal post so if you aren’t interested in hearing another story from Barnsley the Bard, throw me a like and skip it. If you’re sticking around — THANKS! I hope to not ramble too much. Let’s start with a question: What does Christmas Eve mean to you? What does it look like? What are your favorite memories? Mine can be separated into three sections. The Party, The Service, & The Traps.

The Party

(ED NOTE: I wish I had access to my mom’s treasure trove of photos for this post. Please forgive the stock photos. Maybe next year I’ll get some more personal ones.)

It was tradition in my family growing up that we’d go to my Aunt Peggy’s house for Christmas Eve. We’d order an ungodly amount of Chinese food and spend the evening together. In any given year, depending on what aunts and uncles and cousins came there could be anywhere from 30 people (on the low end) to almost 50. Maybe more. Honestly, once my cousin Robbie had triplets, we stopped counting.

My Aunt Peg had several children. A dozen, all told? They ranged in age from adult to toddler at various times, so it’s hard to get an exact count without specifying the year. And once they started having kids of their own — forget it. Needless to say, there was a crapload of people in a normal sized house. OK, maybe a little bigger than “normal” (whatever that means to you) but it wasn’t a mansion. Seating on the couches was reserved for the adults but so long as no older person was in need, we could cram about 4-5 cousins on a sofa at a time.

At times, it could be a little suffocating. I’ve always struggled with crowds and being asses to elbows in a house for 3 hours activates my panic reflexes. And yet… on Christmas Eve it didn’t seem to bother me much. I love my cousins so much, especially the ones who were roughly the same age as me. That was the thing about having a big family. There was so much love to go around it didn’t matter if we all segregated off into age groupings. Generally, this meant that my cousins Amanda and Taren and I would have our own little club. Sometimes my older brother would infiltrate our crew, something I resented, to be honest. Amanda and Taren were my cousins. He should go get his own. I’m not sure why he would even want to be with us. Mostly he seemed to just pick on me and refuse to play “School”, which is what we did most of the time.

My Aunt Peggy’s tree was massive. It was literally the biggest Christmas tree I’d seen not posted in Rockefeller Plaza. It always scrapped the ceiling of their living room and plumped out to what felt like six feet. And the presents, my god, the presents. Coming from a house with just two kids to one with a dozen meant a quintupling (if not more) of the gifts. My poor aunt, having to wrap all those. Gracious. They were stacked beside the tree, aside the tree, and underneath the tree. Not to mention that every aunt (my mom only had sisters) also brought their gifts for all the cousins in paper bags, so the guest room was chock full of bags of presents. It was a kids DREAM. Big tree, lots of lights, and PRESENTS GALORE!

I haven’t mentioned my Uncle Charlie yet and that’s because he wasn’t always there. He was a fireman in my youth and sometimes had to work on Christmas Eve. That’s the sacrifice real heroes make. His father was a fireman for decades too and we called him Pappy. He wasn’t relation to me but on Christmas, it didn’t matter. If you were under the Whitman’s roof on December 24th, you were family. Full stop. They were generous beyond rationality. My mom often brought one of her wayward souls with her, one of the people she’d been connected with through church who didn’t have a family. And dammit if they didn’t treat her like a long-lost cousin.

When my uncle was there (which was most years) he’d be red-faced and jolly. As a kid, I didn’t realize the impacts of alcohol. For us, Uncle Charlie (and a lot of other uncles) were just in a great mood! Who wouldn’t be? It was Christmas Eve!! He had one job those years: to lead the caroling. And my goodness no one could start a round of songs like my Uncle Charlie. I have no idea where they came from but every year he would produce a stack of paper hymnals. They had maybe 30 songs in them and we’d all share them as there weren’t enough to go around. We were off-key and maybe a little loud but my god it was Christmas. No sound will ever sound as Christmas-y as 40 people poorly singing carols in the living room.

We’d order Chinese food from the local restaurant, which was open, of course. And listen, I know you’re thinking about a large amount of food. Stop. You do not have any idea how much food was in this house. Remember this episode from Parks and Rec? It was like that.

There was never an empty plate. We could eat and eat and eat. We’d stuff ourselves and sing songs. And that’s pretty much it. Once it was time to go home, we’d help carry the bags of presents out to the car, all the while keeping an eye turned towards the night sky, hoping to get a glimpse of Rudolph and his blinking red nose. We’d listen to Oldies 103 FM on the ride home (they were the holiday channel where we lived) and hope there was something great in the bags and boxes behind us.

The Service

When we were finally old enough (maybe mature enough is the better way to put it) we’d go to the 10pm candlelight service at our church. It was always my favorite. It was everything I thought Christianity should be. Fellowship, storytelling, and simplicity. Designated people would get to read the story of Jesus’ birth from different Gospels and we’d sing hymns. No organ or anything. Just voices and simple piano. And then the service would end with everyone holding a candle in the dark as we sang Silent Night. It was magic.

I don’t know if they do a livestream of it every year but if they do, you can find it here.

I don’t have much else to say about it. It really speaks for itself.

The Traps

Never content to just accept what we’d been told, my brother and I were committed to coming up with proof of Santa. We didn’t want to just believe, but capture him so we could show him off to everyone. Is this a weird impulse? Sure. But hold your judgment until after I tell you about the traps because you’ll be a lot more disturbed by it. Home Alone was a thing in our house.

This all took place over the course of 3-4 years, with each year demanding more elaborate and brutal traps. The first year, I think we ran some fishing line across the stairs. The next we had false steps. By the time we finally stopped, I think had scattered some nails and rigged some kind of deathly contraption. We had evolved from wanting to capture Santa to needing his body (dead or alive) the next morning as proof. And our traps were great. The one flaw in our plan? The parents.

See, they would tell us “oh, let us know what traps you have in case we have to go downstairs after you go to bed” and we’d happily tell them. We were proud of them! One year I even put vinegar in the milk. Anything to get Santa to make a noise that would wake us up and alert us of his presence. Eventually “Santa” left a note saying it wasn’t very nice to try and kill him every year. I think the magic had worn off by then anyways. Oh well.

So that’s Christmas Eve for me. Chinese food, singing, and trying to get Santa. What does it mean to you? Share your stories on social media (be sure to tag me so I can share too) or in the comments below!

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve everyone!!!

UPDATE FROM MY MOM: