"Christmas Eve in The Bronx"

The holidays have always been a magical time for my family. We all gather at my grandparents place, celebrate, have a big dinner, and open presents. It was magical, especially since it wasn’t technically on Christmas.

For some reason my family never really celebrated on Christmas Day but on Christmas Eve instead. I never really questioned, but it was just how we did it. One of our family traditions. Plus it gave us grandkids the entirety of Christmas day to enjoy our presents.

Speaking of presents, my family always had an interesting way of giving them. Since we lived in an apartment in the Bronx, we never really had a fireplace to hang stockings, so we made our own. It started with my grandma and then later my brother; they would build a fake fireplace and chimney out of cardboard, and this thing was big. We’re talking big enough that you could stand and sit in it. Sometimes it would be a fight to stop the cats from either clawing at it or jumping in it. They made sure to make it big so we can store our presents in it. Instead of under the tree, we would put it in the chimney. I mean, it makes sense. Santa comes down the chimney with presents, so it works. Right? 

But if we put presents in a cardboard chimney, what about the tree?, you're probably asking. Well, my grandma takes care of that. She would put up a mini holiday village that would occupy both the underside of the tree and the windowsill next to it. White cloth for snow, little fairy lights strung up but the houses cascading down from tree to the floor, and the crown jewel, a depiction of the first christmas at the base of the tree, coupled with the baby Jesus and all. My grandma loves setting it up every year. Sometimes adding new things just for fun. One year, I looked over and saw one of my childhood Pokemon figurines among the other animals in the display.

Sadly, in recent years since a lot of us have moved away or gotten married we haven't been able to do one of these big Christmases like we did in the past. But these memories and traditions are so closely linked to Christmas, not just for me but my siblings and cousins too, so I'm confident we’ll try our best to continue them in the future.