Christmas is one of my favorite holidays even though I am Buddhist.
Most of my schooling spent in either Christian or Catholic schools in Taiwan. I attended mass and learned all the songs.
When I was growing up, because my mom used to teach in Catholic school, she was familiar with the rituals. I remember we always had a small tree, we decorated it, and we admired the Christmas lights in the dark while sang the songs. In the morning, we always had stockings. Although I didn't decide on my religion until I came to the States, met a great monk, and decided to become Buddhist, I never wanted to stop celebrating Christmas.
For 8 years, we started with our Christmas preparation by going to Richardson's tree farm to find our perfect tree, cut it down, had chocolate, cinder, donuts, then ended up with a lunch at K.C. cabin.
When we got home, Pete always put on Christmas music and made hot chocolate for kids when we put on the oranments that we collected over the years.
Tonight we decided to go to the historical Christmas lights streets in Lincolnwood, stumped into a Vietnamese pho in an old address of one of our favorite Argentine restaurant, then we searched some more lights. We sang Christmas songs in both Chinese and English in the car (along with Rosie's indecipherable version of "shake if off").
I never forgot when Mr. C's first grade classmate decided to tell him Santa and tooth fairy were not real. He was very upset and asked me whether it was true or not. I let him decide what he wanted to belive. He told me, " Mom, I know they are not real but I want to believe in Santa." He has not changed his decision since.
On Christmas eve, we would leave cookies and milk for Santa. Pete and I would stay up putting Santa's gifts together. We woudl have a bite on the cookies and leave trails. We would drink the milk and leave a mark on the glass. In the morning, we would purposely stay in bed and wait for kids's thrills and laughs!
Ah.....I love Christmas!
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