Since being a kid, this time of year has been very special to me. Growing up in Oxford, I imagined every citizen in the City of Oxford knew exactly what day to begin with the Christmas decorations. Every year, it’s the day prior to the first Monday in December, when the Lions Club hosts the annual Oxford Christmas parade.
The parade is the first sign in town that Christmas is but only a few weeks away. And, as the last float of the parade passes by, it reminds me of my dad. It’s the float my dad made in the early ’90s. Every year, Rudolph prances through the Square, and I smile.
On Christmas Eve, we would always gather at my grandparents’ house off of Highway 7 to have dinner and exchange gifts. Most Christmas’s, the whole family would come, forcing us to fit almost 40 people in my grandparents’ three-bedroom house. As a young kid, my cousin Melissa and I would always watch the movie “Home Alone,” and when we were young, we would glance out of the window, look up and try to find Santa. In fact, Melissa gave me a Christmas ornament this year of two children watching Santa through the window, and she said, “This is us.”
As years have passed and families have grown, we don’t get together on Christmas Eve like we used to. But, we’ve somewhat begun a new tradition; although for my father, it was all he ever knew. Now, I attend the Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Church. Attending this service was a tradition my father followed as a young boy. The Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmother’s prohibited him from continuing this tradition during most of his adulthood, but it was something I was very passionate about picking up to share the same spirit he felt during Christmas time.
After my grandmother passed away in 2012, we have tried to keep the family get-togethers during Christmas, we’ve just downsized and moved the day to Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve. My mom has my aunts and uncles over to our house, which is right across from Lamar Park (just down the street from Eli Manning’s Oxford home), for a Christmas night dinner.
When they come to the house, we visit for hours catching up on the year’s events that we’ve missed, even though both sets of uncles and aunts live within close proximity in North Mississippi.
Uncle Wayne and I usually spend a few hours talking about football, of course. He brags on Mississippi State’s season while I remind him he’s in Oxford. This year, he’ll probably dwell on the fact that MSU will be going to a bowl game, and I’ll try to just change the subject to baseball.
Once it is time to sit down and eat, we probably won’t have a traditional Christmas meal. It will range anywhere from pork tenderloin to ham, depending on the mood we’re in two days before Christmas Day.
Have a blessed and Merry Christmas, everyone.
Have some Christmas traditions you’d like to share? Email your stories to hottytoddynews@gmail.com.
Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.
