On Christmas Eve, I eat cold cuts.
It’s a tradition that started before I was born. Every year of my childhood, and through much of my adult life, Christmas Eve was spent at my grandparents’ house on my dad’s side. There was no roast turkey, no stuffing, no baked ham nor big meal that had Grandma stuck in the kitchen all night.
Instead, we had a large deli tray from the local grocery store: pastrami and roast beef, ham and turkey, pumpernickel and rye bread, and Swiss and cheddar cheeses. There was a relish tray with olives and pickles, and cherry peppers. My aunt Sue made a shrimp salad. My great-grandmother, when she was with us, made an eggnog pie.
Uncle Tom poured drinks for the adults and Shirley Temples for the kids. When I was old enough, I drank a 7 and 7. These days, it’s a Gentleman Jack and ginger ale. There were candy canes hanging on a strand of Christmas lights above the bar. They tasted like Granddad’s cigars.
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Like many family traditions, I have no idea how this one began. Maybe my grandparents smartly figured it was a lot more fun to spend Christmas Eve hanging out with family, rather than spending half of the night in the kitchen. There is probably a good back story, but I never asked.
Grandma and Granddad have been gone for some time now. Their children started their own traditions. I tried to keep theirs alive, though my kids would often laugh at me when I went to the grocery store to buy deli meats. It was my tradition, not theirs. Stop with the rye bread, they asked, and so I adapted.
Now, some of my children are grown and have children of their own; they’ve started their own traditions. When my youngest children were little — they’re teenagers now — we bought one of those awful Elf on the Shelf things. The kids loved it, of course, as my wife and I (mostly my wife) came up with creative activities for Carl — that’s what we named him — every morning in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Carl is gone now, stuck away in some corner of the basement.
This is what happens to traditions. They come and they go. They have different meaning to different generations and each shapes its own memories for years to come. Last year, for many people, including my family, those traditions came to a temporary halt because of the pandemic. We limited our travel to protect the oldest and youngest among us.
I still had my deli tray, though. Because it’s the social media age, I posted a picture of my tray of Christmas Eve food on Facebook, where my sister and brother and cousins could all revel in the traditions of our youth.
This year, fully vaccinated and boosted, we will head to see my son and his wife, and our youngest two grandchildren. What new traditions will we unwrap on Christmas morning? That’s the surprise, really. You can’t force a new tradition. It happens for a reason, and it becomes a way in which we remember times past, and those who aren’t with us anymore.
Years ago, for instance, my wife’s mother told us that a holiday table has to have something green on it. So, in those years when we don’t happen to serve asparagus or green beans, we grab a can of peas and place it in the middle of the table.
“Why is that there?†one of my kids will ask. “To remember Nana.â€
When I eat my cold cuts this Christmas Eve, I’ll remember my grandfather cussing up a storm, as he smoked up the basement lighting his fireplace for the first time of the season. Perhaps my kids will remember that Granddad passed his verbal inclinations on to me, and I practiced them with aplomb every year attempting — and failing — to put Christmas lights on the house.
One generation will touch the other with the nibble of a pastrami sandwich and the clinking of glasses as another holiday marks the passage of time.