The Spirit of the Season

When I was a kid, the holidays were always a huge event for my parents and grandparents. We have lots of fond memories of when we were able to get together with family and catch up on what was going on in everyone’s lives. This was before we had things like Facebook—back then, we used to communicate by writing out letters and packing them into envelopes. I remember that’s how my mom used to let everyone know when a family member accomplished something significant (like graduating).

I remember how my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family used to spend their Christmas Eve. Everyone would get together and play cards using pennies for chips. My grandmother had tons of pennies that we’d pass out to everyone who was going to play. At the end of the night, the winner would be whoever had the largest pile of pennies. Instead of hauling them home, we’d just give them all back to grandma for next time.

They also had a tradition where they’d make Swedish bologna by hand every Christmas evening. We got really accustomed to eating it and we even continue the tradition to this day with my parents. We just don’t make it in the massive quantity like we would do when my dad’s family got together. He’s the second to youngest out of thirteen children, so it’s a pretty big family.  ~Steve Gee