Sunday night marked the 8th anniversary of the
Christmas dinner tradition my best friends and I began when we were fifteen.
Well, 8 years ago give or take. The last couple of years our tradition was
passed over, just because it was impossible to find a time when the five of us
were in the same city and available on the same day! Between me and another
friend being out of town for school, and two of the others who normally spend
the holidays vacationing, keeping our high school tradition alive has been
harder than ever! Despite my hopes for this year, when we were all finally
going to be in the same city for the first time in five years, the planning was
just as difficult! It made me nostalgic for the high school years when seeing
your best girls was an everyday occurrence; ironically, making the seeing one
another at Christmas dinner less important, but easier, than it is now.
We began this tradition in tenth grade. By then, me and my close group of girlfriends had
already known each other for eight years.
At such a young age, we were already a family, and we thought that a
Christmas dinner was due to celebrate that. We decided to do a potluck (which
for most of us meant that our mothers prepared some yummy dish—I only barely
learned to cook when I went away for university) and exchanged small gifts
around the Christmas tree. The following
year, we decided to do Kris Kringle instead, and buy a bigger gift for one
person, since only a few of us had part time jobs hence, the gift giving was
also brought-to-you-by our parents. (Merry Christmas, from my mom just doesn’t
have the same ring to it as a gift you buy yourself, am I right?)
Christmas dinner 2006. (Sorry about the poorly blurred faces, privacy and all that)
By the time we were eighteen, the idea of Christmas dinner
became more important than ever—my friend Sarina and I had both gone out of
town for university, and we happened to be on opposite ends of the province. Two
of my other friends had also begun intensive post secondary programs, and the
final member of our group of five was hunting for full time employment; safe to
say, we all had quite a bit on our plates and our communication had dwindled
significantly. I came into town one weekend specifically for Christmas dinner,
and I remember how excited I was when my friends pulled up at the bus station
to pick me up. It truly felt like a family reunion, but one you actually want
to attend. By Christmas 2008, we all had so many other financial
responsibilities that we decided to cut out gift exchange altogether, thinking
it was better to spend time and money on actually cooking for our annual
potluck, and just enjoying being in one another’s company after such long
separation. But you’d never get the sense anything was “missing”, since we were
all laughs and smiles (ok so the multiple bottles of wine we consumed may have
contributed to that); we even took what you might call “traditional family
photos” with the whole group in front of the tree.
Christmas dinner 2008
That was the last time we were able to get together for our
annual potluck dinner. Even this year, one of my friends was missing due to a
family function, but we just COULD NOT find another day that worked for the
majority of the group, so we decided more attendance was better than no
Christmas dinner at all. We held dinner a little bit later than usual, to accommodate
the work schedules of two of my friends, but even still everyone contributed
something, the wine flowed and it felt like we were eighteen again. This year,
for the first time, it was really starting to hit home that traditions like
these may be harder to keep as the years go on and life gets busier, which
makes them that much more important, even if it is the only time I see my best
friends during the entire holiday season. It would sadden me to see these aspects
of our friendship take the backburner to inevitable life changes: I hope we
will continue our Christmas tradition unto the point where we are each bringing
our own families to celebrate with old friends. Essentially, it is all about making traditions
of love, like our Christmas dinner, a priority, agreeing to make compromises
and sacrifices where necessary to ensure that for that one night a year, our
little family is all present to celebrate not only the holiday season, but the
fact that after so many years of adolescent struggle, the pressures of high
school, physical separation and the difficulties that come with growing up, our
friendship has survived, and is as strong as ever.
I felt that emphasizing this was most important this of all
years, since I have a feeling that the next few years there will bring some big
life changes for many of my friends wherein remembering and relying on your
truest friends will be crucial. To reiterate to my girls my love and
appreciation for them and our friendship, I decided to give them each a small
token from my heart. True to my literary soul, I wrote them each a poem to
commemorate the years past and express my hope for the future. I put them in
frames that cost me no more than a couple of bucks, and I got a more emotional
and appreciative response than I would have expected. Just goes to show that
around the holidays, gifts given from love (whether that be kind words on a
page or spoken aloud, or time spent together) are really all any of us can ask
for. I encourage everyone to make similar traditions with close friends or
family, at the very least to ensure that no matter how crazy life gets, there
remains a stable foundation of love on which to rely, the sharing of which one
can unwaveringly
look forward to year after year.
However, I intend to make sure that next year’s Christmas
dinner includes all five of our group. I may need to start planning now.
No comments:
Post a Comment