A Picture Perfect Christmas

Ariana Munoz Giraldo, Staff Writer

My family and I do not have many traditions, other than the food always being made by the same people and over-decorating our homes but what we do have is a lot of family in general and we have some stuff we don’t consider tradition but simply just habits. 

I grew up with a lot of cousins so we would always wake up really to get our parents to open presents with us and we would also eat a lot. Something I may consider tradition, is how we decorate the Christmas tree. Every year we would play Christmas music while decorating and it would always end up with me singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer too many times, my mom dancing along and my brother always staying focused on decorating the tree. It was all just a matter of habit this year. My mother took a picture of me and my brother off-guard like she did last year and the year before that etc. She said an I quote “It looks just like the one from last year.” She says that every year and in each and every picture you can watch us grow up. It can be considered a tradition or just a silly old habit either way  it  brings joy to my family. 

Another tradition is the food, every year my family has certain people make certain foods, for example my mom would make the turkey, my aunt would make the lasagna and up until recently my mom would also make the potato salda, now that I’m old enough she taught me how to make it and so I do ever since I was 13. Food plays a big role in holidays, food brings us together so if it isn’t  broke don’t fix it. Everyone seems to enjoy the food every year which is what counts. At the end of the night the family packs up the food and people take what they want. It is always a fight for the potato salda because everyone wants it, I always end up having it. 

In conclusion, traditions don’t necessarily have to be big events or situations, they can be simple things like decorating a Christmas tree with Christmas music or arguing about who gets the last scoop of potato salad, regardless of what it is traditions are there to make you and your family happy.