Happy New Year.....Ring Those Bells!

Have you ever thought about the significance of something as simple as a bell?

Not only were church bells of old used to announce the time of day to anyone within hearing distance, bells in general have been used since the earliest of times as a type of alarm, warning those nearby of things that were about to happen, things that were both "good" and some things that were "not so good." While bells have long been included in religious celebrations, the tolling of a bell may also serve as an announcement that a child has been born, a couple has been married, or to inform a community that a death has occurred.

During medieval times, the simple ringing of a bell was believed to have kept evil spirits away, and it was a common practice to ring a bell at the bedside of the deceased prior to burial. In modern times, bells of all types, sizes, and sounds are commonly used in our homes, schools, and other public places. Even our doorbells and the bell that ding-dings when we fail to buckle our seat belts have evolved from the early uses of bells as warning or announcement devices.

Today, bells continue to be a part of the simplest of our holiday traditions, both religious and secular. But neither Christmas nor a New Year celebration would be the same without bells.

Christmas Traditions

This post was initially written for the Carnival of Genealogy, 61st Edition, and first published here on December 1, 2008.  

Our Christmas-related activities, "after children" were many and varied over the years. They changed somewhat every few years because of the children's ages and where we lived at the time. But the ones I call "traditions" were started when our family was young, and they never changed. Some were influenced by our own upbringings, but the ones that meant the most actually started when the first child was born.

One of the things we always did was to put up a "real" tree, usually a Frazier fir. As we moved, the height of ceilings in our houses changed. And when we finally landed in Texas in 1985 and built a house that had a family room with a very high ceiling, we began purchasing a taller tree, usually something that was about 10-12 feet in height. It became a family event to select the "special" tree from one of the many Christmas tree lots that lined the major streets leading to our surburban neighborhood. But it was a "parent" event to get the large tree home on the top of our vehicle and inside the house when we arrived.

Placing the lights on the tree in the early years was always an "adult" task, too. And as soon as the lights were in place, the children began clamoring about who would be "next" to climb the ladder to hang their special ornaments on the tree. When the tree was all decorated and the lights turned on, we started a fire in the fireplace (whether it was cold outside or not!) and sipped on hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows on top, sitting quietly for a few moments to admire in awe the advent of a new Christmas season.

Another tradition involved driving around the week before Christmas to see the Christmas lights in our development and others nearby. In Texas, homeowners' associations take displays of Christmas lights very seriously, and some residents try to outdo their neighbors by having their rooflines, trees, and yard displays decorated by lighting professionals. One of these developments continues its lighting tradition, started about 25 years ago now, with red lights outlining the driveways and walkways that are bright enough to make you think you are nearing the East/West runway of DFW airport! Strategically placed throughout the neighborhood are painted and lighted storyboards that tell in pictures and words the story of "The Night Before Christmas....in Texas, that is..." It was great family fun then and now, and the children, even after they became teenagers, never seemed to tire of reading the story of Santa Claus in his "buckboard" and cowboy boots, making his rounds to deliver gifts to all the children in Texas. Visiting this neighborhood during Christmas season is still a family tradition.

One of my own family traditions growing up in Mississippi was a Christmas Eve gathering of our family which ended with eating fruitcake and drinking egg nog. For the adults in the family, the egg nog may have been laced with rum or with some good old Kentucky bourbon. Don't ask me where they bought the rum or bourbon back then....liquor was illegal in Mississippi until 1966.

But the fruit cake and eggnog tradition was not one that ever took hold in my own family after I had children. They did not like either eggnog or fruitcake. But we simply replaced those holiday items with ones they did enjoy, such as Christmas cookies, lots of Hot Chocolate, and spicy, mulled apple cider, stirred with a cinnamon stick. More often than not, we enjoyed watching a family Christmas movie together, or when the children were younger, we read Christmas stories and listened to Christmas carols, always ending with the always special, "Silent Night." 

Until the children were teenagers, we allowed them to open one gift, and one gift only, to settle some of the anticipation that grew increasingly greater with every day leading up to Christmas morning. Christmas morning always came early in a household where five children had been waiting for weeks for this special day. After they descended on the gifts, we enjoyed a big, homemade breakfast, that usually consisted of French toast, waffles, or pancakes, with Canadian bacon or little smokie sausages, and juice.

Attending Christmas Mass was always a part of our Christmas tradition, but as the children grew older and could stay up longer, instead of attending Mass on Christmas morning, we began going to Midnight Mass, something that became a very special time for all of us. We especially enjoyed the singing of Christmas carols and a performance by the Bell Choir that began thirty minutes before the start of Mass. One of the many memories I have of my children growing up was the first time we attended Midnight Mass, when one of my sons expressed amazement at how few cars were on the streets of our surburban city at 11:30 p.m. I don't think he had ever been up that late in his young life. Little did he know at that moment how many times he and his brothers and their friends would be out at 11:30 p.m. (or later) as teenagers driving on those same streets.

As the children have grown older and some now have families of their own, they have started some of their own special traditions that emulate the ones they remember from childhood. Sometimes, when we are lucky, they include us. But what is important is that family traditions continue to overlap the generations that carry special memories of Christmas when each of us was "growing up."

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Day 4 - Christmas Cards

Christmas cards have always been part of our family's Christmas tradition. My parents and my grandparents  enjoyed writing and receiving cards and displayed them in various ways during the Christmas holidays.  Most often, the Christmas cards were taped around a doorway or displayed on something that resembled a small clothesline.  I still recall the many colorful card designs of nativity scenes, holly, candles, and snow scenes.  As a child growing up in Mississippi, I really didn't understand why anyone would send a Christmas card with a snow scene.  I had seen a snow flurry only once, when I was ten years old, and we certainly had never had a White Christmas! 


My grandparents especially cherished the cards they received from cousins and other relatives who had moved out of state and would not be home for the holidays. Of course, keeping in touch during those years meant writing a card or a letter.  We did not have a phone until I was nine years old, and the age of the Internet was still dozens of years away. Although e-cards and emails have now become part of our culture, for me there is no substitute for the genuine paper Christmas card that I can feel and touch. I am a keeper of cards, and my Box of Memories contains many precious Christmas cards from years past that included handwritten notes from close family and dear friends.


Our family's Christmas card tradition has endured, and my adult children now send cards, too.  I especially like cards that depict religious art, children, and nature scenes. At our house, we always wonder whose Christmas card we will receive first - will it be from old friends who now live a thousand miles away, from one of the grown-up kids, or will it be from a neighbor down the street? I suppose this is just part of our overall anticipation of Christmas and the joy and wonder the season brings.  

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Day 2

Special Christmas food is the topic for the second day of Geneabloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.  This is a difficult topic for me, since my mother and grandmother prepared so many many wonderful, southern holiday foods.  But I suppose my all-time favorite would be the delicious coconut cake that my mother made, a fluffy white confection, filled and iced with seven-minute frosting and freshly grated coconut.  Even as a young child, I was aware of how much effort it took to make that cake.  When I was growing up, my mother did not own a power mixer of any kind - she beat the egg whites with the old-fashioned hand-cranked mixer and added the moist, white coconut that she had grated by hand - hard to imagine for most contemporary cooks. Standing tall on its crystal cake stand, my mother's masterpiece towered over the other Christmas desserts, beckoning young and old to taste it. 

Happy New Year!

Have you ever thought about the significance of something as simple as a bell?

Not only were church bells of old used to announce the time to anyone within hearing distance, bells in general have been used since the earliest of times as a type of alarm, warning those nearby of things that were about to happen, things that were both "good" and some things that were "not so good." While bells have long been included in religious celebrations, the tolling of a bell may also serve as an announcement that a child has been born, a couple has been married, or to inform a community that a death has occurred.

During medieval times, the simple ringing of a bell was believed to have kept evil spirits away, and it was a common practice to ring a bell at the bedside of the deceased prior to burial. In modern times, bells of all sizes, types and sounds are commonly used in our homes, schools, and other public places. Even our doorbells and the bell that ding-dings in our cars when we don't buckle up have evolved from early uses of bells as warning or announcement devices.

Today, bells continue to be a part of the simplest of our holiday traditions, both religious and secular. But neither Christmas nor a New Year's wish would be the same without bells.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Tonight at midnight, Mardi Gras celebrations are officially over, and the season of Lent begins. It seems this celebration, a religious-based one that dates back to the second century in ancient Rome, catches on in more places every year. Although large parades and related festivities are still confined to predominantly Catholic areas in Louisiana and coastal cities all the way from Beaumont, Texas to Mobile, Alabama, including the Mississippi Gulf Coast, smaller celebrations of green, gold, and purple continue to pop up every year in areas farther north. King cakes, with plastic "babies" are sold in chain grocery stores throughout the midwest, and colorful beads hang from the rear-view mirrors of cars whose owners have never set foot in "Mardi Gras Country."

It seems that Mardi Gras has become "everyone's celebration."

Why has this happened? Have we become a country of party-goers and merrymakers, where everyone is looking for something to celebrate? Maybe. But more likely than not, traditional celebrations such as Mardi Gras serve as means to bring people together in ways that ordinary, everyday celebrations cannot. They create a common bond of tradition, promote a spirit of community, and create an opportunity to live for a few moments in the present that removes some of the stress of everyday life.

And during these difficult economic times, celebrations like Mardi Gras, with its meaning steeped in years of history and tradition, are important to all of us.

Christmas Traditions

This post was written for the Carnival of Genealogy, 61st Edition, which has "Christmas Traditions" as its theme.

Our Christmas-related activities, "after children" were many and varied over the years. They changed somewhat every few years because of the children's ages and where we lived at the time. But the ones I call "traditions" were started when our family was young, and they never changed. Some were influenced by our own upbringings, but the ones that meant the most actually started when the first child was born.

One of the things we always did was to put up a "real" tree, usually a Frazier fir. As we moved, the height of ceilings in our houses changed. And when we finally landed in Texas in 1985 and built a house that had a family room with a very high ceiling, we began purchasing a taller tree, usually something that was about 10-12 feet in height. It became a family event to select the "special" tree from one of the many Christmas tree lots that lined the major streets leading to our surburban neighborhood. But it was a "parent" event to get the large tree home on the top of our vehicle and inside the house when we got home. 

Placing the lights on the tree in the early years was always an "adult" task. And as soon as the lights were in place, the children began clamoring about who would be "next" to climb the step ladder to hang their special ornaments on the tree. When the tree was all decorated and the lights turned on, we started a fire in the fireplace (whether it was cold outside or not!) and sipped on hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows on top, sitting quietly for a few moments to admire in awe the advent of another Christmas season.

Another tradition involved driving around the week before Christmas to see the Christmas lights in our development and others nearby. In Texas, homeowners' associations take displays of Christmas lights very seriously, and some residents try to outdo their neighbors by having their rooflines, trees, and yard displays decorated by lighting professionals. One of these developments continues its lighting tradition, started about 20 years ago now, with red lights outlining the driveways and walkways that are bright enough to make you think you are nearing the East/West runway of DFW airport! Strategically placed throughout the neighborhood are painted and lighted storyboards that tell in pictures and words the story of "The Night Before Christmas....in Texas, that is..." It was great family fun then and now, and the children, even after they became teenagers, never seemed to tire of reading the story of Santa Claus in his "buckboard" and cowboy boots, making his rounds to deliver gifts to all the children in Texas.

One of my own family traditions growing up in Mississippi was a Christmas Eve gathering of our family which ended with eating fruitcake and drinking egg nog. For the adults in the family, the egg nog may have been laced with rum or with some good old Kentucky bourbon. Don't ask me where they bought it back then....liquor was illegal in Mississippi until 1966.

But the fruit cake and eggnog tradition was not one that ever took hold in my own family after I had children. They did not like either eggnog or fruitcake. But we simply replaced those holiday items with ones they did enjoy, such as Christmas cookies, lots of Hot Chocolate, and spicy, mulled apple cider, stirred with a cinnamon stick. More often than not, we enjoyed watching a family Christmas movie together, or when the children were younger, we read Christmas stories and listened to Christmas carols, always ending with the ever popular, "Silent Night."

Until the children were teenagers, we allowed them to open one gift, and one gift only, to settle some of the anticipation that grew increasingly greater with every day leading up to Christmas morning. Christmas morning always came early in a household where five children had been waiting for weeks for this day. After they descended on the gifts, we enjoyed a big, homemade breakfast, that usually consisted of French toast, waffles, or pancakes, with Canadian bacon or little smokie sausages, and juice.

Attending Christmas Mass was always a part of our Christmas tradition, but as the children grew older and could stay up longer, we began going to Midnight Mass, something that became a very special time for all of us. We especially enjoyed the singing of Christmas carols and a performance by the Bell Choir that began thirty minutes before the start of Mass. One of the many memories I have of my children growing up was the first time we attended Midnight Mass, when one of my sons expressed amazement at how few cars were on the streets of our surburban city at 11:30 p.m. I don't think he had ever been up that late in his young life. Little did he know at that moment how many times he and his brothers and their friends would be out at 11:30 p.m. as teenagers driving on those same streets.

As the children have grown older and some now have families of their own, they have started some of their own special traditions that emulate the ones they remember from childhood. Sometimes, when we are lucky, they include us. But what is important is that family traditions continue to overlap the generations and take with them the special memories of Christmas when we were "growing up."