I am originally from Saint John, New Brunswick. We are a very tight family, I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. When we all lived in Saint John, we spent every Christmas Eve with my parents and each other. Santa Claus delivered 1 gift to all the small children at my parents on Christmas Eve. The get together started with just immediate family and exploded to neighbors and relatives, each bringing a gift for their child for "Santa" to drop off under the outside tree my Mom always put up. It was wonderful for the adults and exciting for the children.
In 1993, my brother and I both moved from Saint John. My brother moved to Miramichi and my daughters and I moved to Fredericton. My little family grew to include my husband and his 2 sons. Our children were 5,7, 9 and 15 when Michael and I blended our families. Because of the distant, snow storms, etc., my brother and I unfortunately were unable to travel to Saint John for our annual Christmas Eve get together.
My youngest sister really missed our being there and in 1999 she sent everyone in the family a small box that was not to be opened until 10:00 pm Christmas Eve. In the box were Santa hats made out of wood and painted red and white of course, and our name was on each one. With the Santa hats was a very sappy letter explaining to us that we were dearly missed and to enable us to have a tradition we could share on Christmas Eve, we were to put the hats on the tree each year at 10:00 pm. Needless to say - it brought tears to everyone's eyes and the tradition was started.
Our family grew over the years and a number of people did not have hats - husband, wives, children that has joined our family after 1999 so in 2008 my husband and I counted them up and we did 15 more hats, 13 for new members and a couple extra just in case.
I would like to pass this on to all families that are separated at Christmas time. It is a wonderful tradition and the hats are very easy to make. The best thing of all - when we are hanging our Santa hat ornaments on the tree - we are thinking of each other and for a few minutes we are together in our heads and our hearts if not physically.
I included the pictures above, please feel free to copy them!
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Kathy
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story. It sounds like a great idea. As I have on going contact with families experiencing deployment and tours of duty, I send a Newsletter monthly to all these families (approx. 800 in eastern Ontario). With your permission I would like to share this story with our families for next Christmas. I would like to possibly include it in our October or November issue so that it would allow families time to think and plan to develop their own version of this tradition.
It sounds like your family is very close at heart although perhaps geographically separated. – Lynn Ward, Canadian Military Forces