- November 2, 2024
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It's like a present we receive each Christmas, and the holiday just isn't the same without it.
It's a Christmas tradition.
Whether it's a type of food, a pretty ornament, a game we play, a touch football game on the lawn or a stroll around the neighborhood to sing carols, many of us have that special something that gets our family stamp.
Here is a look at a few holiday traditions.
While some people might have turkey or ham for Christmas dinner, Lakewood Ranch's Lorri Kidder and her family take a different route.
Each year, Kidder makes lasagna.
Kidder said her family started having lasagna for Christmas dinner 10 years ago so they could be a little different.
To go along with the main dish, each of her children, Ryan Ericson, Kyle Ericson and Alyssa Lewis, chooses a side dish.
Kidder said Ryan Ericson almost always picks broccoli salad while Lewis might choose twice baked potatoes. Kyle Ericson doesn't have a set preference.
"It doesn't always make sense when you put it all together," Kidder said with a laugh. "My favorite thing is having all my kids together."
A must-have for Kidder is a cranberry jello salad, which is a family recipe.
Each year Lakewood Ranch's Peggy Kronus has a job to do.
She is in charge of decorating the tree, but more importantly, she has to hide a pickle.
The pickle ornament has been a family tradition since she was a child.
"I grew up in Tennessee, and my mom always did that," Kronus said. "I always grew up finding a pickle."
Now she hides a pickle in her Christmas tree.
"When I'm putting up the tree, my family will ask me where it is, and I always say, 'I'm not telling anyone,'" she said.
Whoever finds it gets a special gift. Kronus said the gift usually is something that relates to something important to the family like golf or cows.
When Riverwalk's Peggy and Skip Turner married 41 years ago, one of the Christmas gifts they received was an ornament to celebrate their first Christmas as a married couple.
Since then, Peggy Turner has been buying an ornament to celebrate each year of her marriage. She decided to go with a lighthouse theme and has all the Hallmark lighthouse ornaments.
After each of their children, Brandy Weeks, Meagan Russo and Jacob Tuner, were born, Peggy Turner started buying them a special ornament each year.
As the family has expanded, so has the tradition. Peggy Turner buys ornaments now for her 4-year-old grandson, Rory Russo, and 18-month-old grandson, Warner Russo.
"It's something to look forward to every year," Peggy Turner said.
When River Club’s T.J. Hudspeth awoke each Christmas morning, she didn’t spend the first moments reaching for her presents.
There was another step that had to take place first in her original home in Iowa.
At the insistence of her mother, Sharon Senger, Hudspeth and her 11 siblings had to provide their own gift: a performance of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
The 12 children would each take a turn, singing one of the 12 verses, each of them making up their own substitutes for the gifts in the lyrics.
Hudspeth said hearing the children sing was something her mother appreciated.
“She was always singing,” Hudspeth said.
Although Senger died 20 years ago, Hudspeth said she has continued the tradition with her now-adult sons Austin and Sam Hudspeth, who also sang for Sharon Senger and Hudspeth’s father, Jack Senger, when they were alive.
T.J. Hudspeth's husband, Steve Hudspeth, said even though the two boys are now grown up, they will still precede the opening of their gifts with a song, if the couple “can talk them into it.”
Greenbrook’s Charles Maltby said Christmas Eve is a significant occasion for him — and not merely because it happens to be his birthday.
It was also the day his grandmother Arden Sutherland (his mother’s stepmother) was born and the day his grandmother Myra Murphy (his mother’s mother) died.
He said he spends the day commemorating both grandmothers, who died in 2006 and 2000, and remembers growing up alongside them in Florida.
Maltby said for people born on Christmas Eve or Christmas, birthday traditions can be forgotten amid the holiday celebrations.
However, he said, because Sutherland was also born on that day, she understood why it was important to hold distinct celebrations for the two occasions. She would bake a birthday cake with him, something he still does every year.
“She really carved out time for me,” he said.
Whether his family’s Christmas activities include trips to view lights with stops for hot chocolate and coffee, or Christmas swims, he said he always tries to approach the holiday from a perspective of remembrance.
“It’s just about being intentional about it, not letting memories fall to the wayside,” he said.
As a young child, Lakewood Ranch’s Reva Wilcox would cry during Christmas Eve dinners because she was overwhelmed by the seven items of food on her plate.
However, she now enjoys eating the family dinners, which she said are part of the Polish Catholic heritage she brings from Pittsburgh, where she grew up.
The tradition of seven items per plate is practiced by some families in Poland for good luck.
Common dishes might include mushrooms, soup, potatoes, veggies, Pierogi, fish, cucumber salad, bread, and a corn dish.
Part of the tradition is also to eat a communion wafer which everyone passes around the table and breaks apart.
Wilcox said having recently become vegan, the menu creates some additional effort on the part of her mother, Stephanie Revill. However, Wilcox said she still gladly obliges and ensures there are seven items for her daughter, with plenty of food to spare.
“I make enough to feed an army,” Revill said.
“We love Christmas,” said Wilcox. “It’s like the highlight of our life.”
In an effort to connect with their Finnish heritage, Lakewood Ranch’s Bill Zarrella and his family, including his children and grandchildren, put on their proverbial baking caps.
Each holiday season, the Zarrellas follow an old family recipe — it’s a secret — and make cookies. The cookies, appropriately called Finnish cookies, are soft and delectable, Zarrella said. They are decorated with frosting and sprinkles, usually in a Christmas-themed design.
“The best part is, I get to be a taste-tester,” Zarrella said.
The cookies are only made once a year, a few days before Christmas. Some are eaten right away, then the leftovers serve as one of the family’s Christmas night desserts.
For 27 years, University Park’s Jeremy Schiller has started Christmas morning with one thought in his head.
Pancakes.
Since he was 14, Schiller has had a Christmas breakfast with his friend Kevin Henson and Henson’s family, and it is always pancakes on the table. When the tradition began, Schiller was picky in his tastes. Being from Connecticut, Schiller asked the Hensons for authentic maple syrup — not the generic grocery store stuff. He insisted he could tell the difference.
They didn’t have any, but the next year, the Hensons bought Schiller a real vial of maple syrup and had him take multiple taste tests to see if his palate was as refined as he claimed.
“I got every single one right,” Schiller said.
Since then, the Hensons have purchased a bottle of syrup for Schiller as a Christmas gift, which he immediately cracks open so they can all use it together.
Usually, the holidays are about bringing people together, not pulling things apart.
There’s an exception in the holiday tradition of Lakewood Ranch’s Sarah Russell and her family.
Russell and her family have English blood, and as a way to keep the traditions of the family’s past alive, the family purchases English poppers, also known as crackers. The poppers, appropriately, pop open when pulled apart on both ends. The Russells open theirs on Christmas day.
Inside the poppers are four things — a toy of some sort, a paper crown, a joke, and a fortune.
“We all put on our crowns and go around telling our jokes,” Russell said.
Russell said her children, Mary Russell and Billy Russell, are particularly fond of the tradition.
It’s a way to start the holiday with a bang.
