Our Christmas traditions: 'We open one present at a time. It takes hours'
Picture: Nicole Michalou / Pexels
On Christmas Eve, Aileen Hickie’s five children still go to bed before her and her husband, Matt — even though two are in their 20s and the others are aged 19, 17, and 15.
The couple has maintained the same rituals through the years.
“We fill their Santa sacks with all the stuff we’ve hidden under the bed, in cupboards and in the car boot,” says Hickie, Parentline CEO.
She adds that cake and milk are still left out for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph.
But just before the kids head upstairs, the whole family dances around the sofa to Christmas music.
“We did it when they were small to wear them out for bed, and we still do even though most of them are taller than me.”
And while her brood doesn’t write Santa letters anymore, they do draft up Christmas wish lists.
“And on Christmas Day, if I forgot to put out the Christmas crackers, there’d be murder. Even as adults we like to wear paper hats.”
Hickie is a big believer in building family Christmas traditions.
“Traditions give more of a certainty to the Christmas experience. Everything about childhood is about having certainty and clarity, confidence about what is coming. Children don’t generally like uncertainty — they like the foreknowledge of how things are going to go.”
And as children get older, maintaining Christmas traditions is equally important.
“Because there’s less of the nervous excitement you had when they were small and waiting for Santa. And when these elements are gone, it’s nice they have other hooks to hang onto — that are part of the whole Christmas feeling and make them feel the magic of Christmas.”
Counselling psychologist Caroline Martin says traditions are important because they create a rhythm in our year.
“Rhythm is so important. It creates a sense of safety and predictability. Traditions are like little cues to our bodies that send a signal of safety and consistency.”
There are the Christmas traditions that happen right on Christmas Eve/Day and then there are those we do in the run-up to the big event.
Those leading-up-to traditions are immensely valuable, says Martin.
“They build a capacity in children to tolerate anticipation — so we do this tradition three weeks out, do that one week out. They become little indicators of where we are and are really helpful for developing a tolerance of anticipation.”
Children’s ombudsman Niall Muldoon agrees.
“For younger children especially, the excitement can be overwhelming. But if they know: ‘the first weekend we’re going to visit Santa, the following we’ll meet our grandparents’, it takes away some of the uncertainty.
"As children grow, these certainties become what they look forward to.”
The highlight of Muldoon’s childhood Christmases was decorating the tree.
“We all got involved. Back when tinsel was a key decorator, we’d all take a room each to decorate.”
Christmas, he says, is about building memories.
“If you’ve a tradition that can create positive memories again and again, that really adds to a sense of joy.”
A tradition he loves, which his two daughters — now aged 19 and 21 — have always enjoyed, is one begun by his sister-in-law, the children’s aunt.
“She created a tradition of baking Christmas cakes in October, and then inviting all the cousins in November to a cake-decorating competition.
“They’d all gather in her house and the children would be given marzipan, icing and colours. There’d be a small prize for the best-decorated cake.
It was great for all the cousins to catch up.”
For Martin, a favourite childhood Christmas tradition was her dad’s custom on Christmas Eve of bringing her and her siblings to visit extended family.
“We only got to see these relatives at Christmas time. I loved it because we got to hear stories about distant relatives. You got the sense we were part of a bigger extended family.
“And there was always the box of biscuits. And Lemon’s hard-boiled sweets — all those things you’d only get at Christmas.
“I’m the third of four children,” says the mum of three. “On Christmas morning we’d always go downstairs together.
"That’s a tradition I carry on with my own children.
A new tradition Martin has developed with her family involves watching movies on the weekends leading up to Christmas. Each weekend, a different member of the family picks the movie.
“What lies beneath it is the important value we place on family, on togetherness, and conveying that to our children — we’re here together, we’re in this together.”
Togetherness is also at the heart of the Christmas gift-opening ritual in Hickie’s house.
“We open one present at a time, starting from youngest to eldest. It’s an absolute production, it takes hours — we each look at whatever everyone else gets and appreciate, rather than having them all in a jumble on the floor.
“The recipient admires it and says whatever about it. The chat’s about who gave it to you and why, so it’s not a forgotten gift — so that hours later I’m not saying ‘who gave you that again?’ We do it like this, and it doesn’t become just a big lot of wrapping paper on the floor, everybody grabbing a box and going back to their bedroom.”
Christmas in Muldoon’s house begins the first weekend of December when the tree is brought down, they start decorating it and then go off for lunch together.
Hickie’s family tries to hold off on all Christmas prep until around December 8, though “we always get the Christmas tree on the Sunday before December 8.”
And because Martin’s is an Irish-American family, Christmas isn’t spoken of until after Thanksgiving.
“For other families, Christmas may start after Halloween. In our family that’d be considered very early, a very long lead-in time.”
That people begin Christmas at different times — and that we all have varying traditions — sharpens children’s sense of identity, Martin says.
“We see what’s valued within our family. We have a sense of belonging in that tradition.”
Can children get bored with Christmas traditions, particularly when they hit their teens?
Martin recalls feeling not quite as enthusiastic — even a bit compromised — at Christmas time during her teens.
“Developmentally, teenagers are striving for a sense of autonomy and independence from the family. Yet, it’s also really important to build a sense of identity and connection with our family. That can rub up against the adolescent need for separation and independence.”
With Christmas so full of tradition, there can be a sense of sadness, particularly for adults remembering Christmases past.
Martin says Christmas is a time of reflection that holds a lot of potential for healing.
“It’s a time to reflect, and it can be a time to be intentional around healing any hurts in the family, which is lovely.”
And, while it’s not by any stretch a tradition, it’s quite commonplace — especially for children — to feel a degree of anticlimax later on Christmas Day.
“There’s a conversation to be had about how we help our children at that point. They loved the anticipation, the excitement — and now they recognise that it has come and gone,” says Martin, who understands it can be hard for parents to see sad faces on Christmas Day after all their hard work.
So what captures the Christmas essence for our experts?
Martin loves the idea of being there for the switching on of Christmas lights in the city, of drinking mulled wine. Christmas is her favourite time of year.
“I relish it,” she says.
Hickie says Christmas Day in her house has a pattern and a rhythm that rarely varies.
And Muldoon, whose family Christmas Eve tradition is to have lunch in their local village café, sums up what the seasonal traditions mean to him.
“It’s about being together in this day and age of digital and remote working. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You can use the same decorations as last year — it’s still the same buzz. It’s about being together.”
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