NOVEMBER 23, 2006

THE CADRE @ 5

NEWS

Christmas Break Nostalgia

Jaime Constable Reporter

The holidays are almost upon us, ripe with the promise of warmth and laugh- ter, good food and the spirit of giving and receiving. We’ve all had traditions passed to us through our religious groups and cultures, but over the years many families have come up with some unique traditions of their own.

Other things have changed as well. For almost 50 per cent of us ‘kids’ from divorced parents, the holidays are filled with hours of driving here and there, and being slowly turned into a turkey pifiata; Christmas Eve dinner at lunchtime with the future in-laws, more turkey that night at Mom’s, and the grand finale, Christmas day dinner at Dad’s. It’s a good thing we’ve moved to the automobile, the horses wouldn’t have made it.

Many traditions involve foods other than turkey as well. Meghan Rooney, a fourth year student at UPEI,

has a big smile as she recalls some of her family’s traditions.

“Every Christmas morning we have meat pie, I think it’s so we

wouldn’t eat too much candy,” said

Rooney. “Mom makes really good meat pie.”

Brunches ate big too, and not just bacon and eggs. A fourth year psy- chology student’s family has a creamy lobster stew with their breakfast. It’s no wonder we all gain ten pounds, be- tween the gravy and stuffing, the sau- sage and waffles, and Nanny’s homemade candy and chocolate! The rum and eggnog just might have a lit- tle hand in things too.

Not all memories are of eating though. Parents go to great lengths to preserve the magic of Christmas. Along with leaving treats out for Santa, one student described how her father used to take her out leave grain in the

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Christmas Nostalgia

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yard for the reindeer. After she went to bed, her father would get the cows out of the barn to walk around the yard so it would

look like the reindeer were there. She even remembered the nose prints from the cows eating the grain. Many of us have signature gifts we give or receive every year. “On Christ- mas eve we always got to open two gifts,” said Rooney “and one was al- ways new pajamas, socks and under- wear, and we would have baths and put them on. The other gift was al- ways a toy.” Other students described how they always get the same useful things in their stockings, or the same candies year after year.

With exams only a couple weeks away it means that welcomed and much deserved holiday break is right around the bend as well. Whether it’s family dinners, or family drunks, work- ing at the soup kitchens, or heading to midnight mass, remember to enjoy

those time honored traditions, and hopefully you’ll create some new quirky or meaningful traditions of your own. Thank you to all those students who shared their memories!

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