Happy Holidays: Sanderson Style

Christmas is right around the corner, readers! I, for one, am thrilled! I absolutely love this time of year, from Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas. For this blog, I thought I'd share some of the Sanderson family's annual holiday traditions, and some memorable holiday anecdotes.

Family Traditions:

Re-enacting the Nativity. This was a yearly fun family event every Christmas when we were children. I think it was a good way for our parents to teach us about Jesus' birth from an early age. The whole family would get involved! Someone would read the story, and then parents/kids would act out the parts. Mary would always ride in on a donkey, which was usually one of the boys. And the youngest family member or a baby doll played the role of baby Jesus. Our manger was a laundry basket. We got creative. ;)

Pie. Okay, I mean, pie is just a food, but my family is exceptionally fond of it. There is always an abundance of cherry and pumpkin pie at every extended family holiday. Apple and pecan also make their appearances, but the two family favorites are definitely pumpkin and cherry. We have good cooks in our family! And good eaters, too!


Storytelling. Whether it's re-living past holidays, or just recounting crazy past events, my relatives love to tell stories. Some recent family favorites are: Eric and Julia's apartment toilet fiasco (Eric conveniently devoted some blog posts to the tale. He's a fantastic writer, y'all.), and cousin Natalie's startling experience with Odessa PD, who came to the house while she was home alone, guns drawn, looking for a suspect named Juan...whoops.

Christmas tree decorating. Yeah, most everyone decorates a tree at Christmas. My family likes to buy a real one every year! It has always been a lot of fun to pick it out and take it home and decorate it together. We don't have super fancy, sparkly, coordinating ornaments. Mom has made it tradition to buy each of us an ornament every year. (When Eric and Julia were married, she gave him all of his ornaments from over the years as a special gift for their Christmases together.) There are also many ornaments that have been gifts, or crafts that we kids did in elementary school. I love our Christmas tree. It's homey and sentimental. :)

My mom and my aunt matching. A running joke of my family is that my mom and Susan, her sister, quite often buy and wear matching outfits without consulting one another. They have done this for years, even back when they were in college. They also unintentionally buy my cousins and me the same things as gifts. A few Christmases ago, Julie and I got identical bathrobes. Years before that, we three girls showed up to Christmas with matching pajamas. Even this Thanksgiving, as Momma and I drove to Plano to meet the relatives for dinner, I said to her, "I bet Susan will be wearing a teal shirt, too." Lo and behold, we walked in and burst into laughter because Susan was, in fact, wearing the same colored shirt as my mother. Must be a sister thing!

Watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. This is a very long-standing tradition that is dear to my heart. Every Christmas when we visit Dad's relatives, we all sit down and watch The Muppet Christmas Carol together. It's definitely my favorite Christmas movie, not only because it's just really great to watch, but also because it is such a well-kept Sanderson family tradition.

After-meal naps. It is common practice for my entire family to scatter around the host house to take a full-bellied snooze after Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation. When the Russell side of the family has Thanksgiving in Midland, Uncle David reads Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation. It's really neat to listen and to be reminded of the blessings and mercy of our Heavenly Father.

Granny's home cooking. My dad's mom, Granny, is a phenomenal down-home, Southern-style cook. For years, we would always have homemade bread, her special macaroni and cheese, and big chocolate cupcakes from scratch at Sanderson holiday gatherings. Recently, though, Granny's health has been declining, and she rarely cooks. Thankfully, we have her recipes. I hope to try my hand at keeping those foods in our family. I'm already a pro at the mac and cheese. It's SO good.

Combined family birthday party. It's tradition with the Russell (my mom's) side of the family to have a combined birthday party at Thanksgiving time. We're all together at one home, and there are four members who have birthdays in the end of November and the beginning of December: Grandma, Uncle Dale, Eric, and cousin Sam. So, it's rather ideal to throw a party for everyone at once!

Memorable Thanksgivings/Christmases:

The Christmas when Uncle Dale proposed to Aunt Kathy. At that time, we lived in Chicagoland. Dale and Kathy traveled to the midwest to visit Kathy's family in Indiana, and then to us in Illinois. And they surprised us with the news of their engagement! It was an especially happy and celebratory Christmas.

That Thanksgiving when the plumbing went kaput. A few years ago, we Sandersons hosted the Russell family at our house, and that holiday, one of our plumbing pipes decided to burst. We had NO WATER, with guests at our house! We had to take family potty trips to nearby fast food restaurants. Luckilly, my aunt and uncle rented a hotel room nearby, and they let us Sandersons shower there until we could get plumbers out to our house to fix our problem. (Which took a while, because it was Thanksgiving and everyone was on holiday.) What a predicament.

That Thanksgiving when it snowed. I think it was my junior year of high school, and we all woke up Thanksgiving morning to snow in Midland! We cousins bundled up and ventured out to a nearby field and had a snowball fight. :) 

Our first Christmas with Julia in the family! We got to have Eric and Julia with us on their first Christmas as a newlywed couple. And just to celebrate, God gave us a white Christmas Eve!

That Christmas when we cut down our own tree. One year when we were in Illinois, we went to a tree farm and cut down our own tree! It was such a festive activity! However, I most vividly remember that David stuffed a lot of snow down my back...still a little bitter about that part.

That Christmas I had mono... Oh, hey! That was last Christmas! Yep, I was struck with mononucleosis last December/January, and it decided to rear its evil head with gusto as we traveled down to Midland for the holiday. I was miserable. My family got a kick out of making sure that no one touched anything I ate or drank out of. They actually labeled things.... I also had no appetite, so I barely partook of any wonderful Christmas food. However, I can definitely say it is a Christmas I can look back on and smile. 

All of these little stories just make me feel blessed beyond measure. I am privileged to have a close-knit extended family, and family members that love and follow the Lord. These holidays together are always times of thanks to God: He has so richly blessed and provided for us over the years. And with that, I am thoroughly looking forward to Christmas travels in a few weeks! Wishing you readers the same. Cherish the time with your own families!

Photos courtesy of Julie and Natalie Brown, Google searches, and myself.