“Grateful Christmas” is the fourth of eight Christmas articles received from Wayne High School students. Three of them were published in The Byway’s most recent December print paper. All will be featured online.
To me, the true meaning of Christmas is being grateful for everything that my family and I are blessed with, and the ways that I am treated by everybody. Being generous to me involves giving thanks to everyone whenever something is done for you or given to you. Generosity is important to my family, especially because one of our traditions is eating dinner at one of our relatives’ houses on Christmas Eve, so I am very thankful for the food that I am given and the gifts I receive. On Christmas day, I have to be the most thankful though because I receive quite a bit of gifts from all of my relatives, and then after that we eat a large brunch with friends.
Another one of my family’s traditions is going on the mountain and cutting down a Christmas tree. We usually stick to getting a pine or fur, so we don’t get pokes as much. This is an important tradition for us because we have done it for years, and the amazing smell that wafts in the air after cutting the tree down makes the cold weather all worth it. After bringing the tree back to our house, we always decorate it the same night. We are grateful while decorating the tree because we always get a few new animal ornaments to put on the tree.
Once we finish setting up our tree with all of the ornaments, we slowly start to put gifts under the tree. Usually about half of our gifts come early and get put under the tree before Christmas Eve, so we call everyone that sends us an early gift and thank them. The first gift that my family opens is a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve. My Mom is usually the one who buys the pajamas for us so we always thank her and then we usually watch a Christmas movie before going to bed.
Another one of the biggest themes of Christmas to me is giving. One of the ways that my family gives is by giving out candy that my mom makes. The candy that my mom makes is usually fudge and toffee. The other thing that we give out is loaves of bread, along with the candy. One of our family’s newer traditions is doing a large gift swap with about fifty of my family members on my Dad’s side of the family. During this gift swap, we get on a zoom call with everyone and draw names to see who gives gifts to who. This is really fun because I never know what the person is going to get me, and it is fun trying to decide what to get for the person who I drew. These are the true meanings of Christmas to me and how my family celebrates the holiday while staying grateful and giving.
– by Miles Hinkle (10th) Wayne High School
Picture by Austin C. (10) Bicknell.
Read more from Miles in Thanksgiving at Fishlake.