Glad tidings from Dad each Christmas Eve
Like many families, we LaFranchis have our unshakable Christmas traditions, the activities and artifacts without which the holiday would not be ours.
There’s the review of the Nativity sets we’ve collected from around the world – to be augmented this year by new entries from Kenya and El Salvador. There’s the baking and decorating of the bûche de Noël – using a Texas recipe we’ve remained faithful to since first trying it out in our diminutive Paris kitchen in 1992.
Why We Wrote This
Forget commercialism and stress. Our correspondents share their traditions to tap into the true meaning of Christmas.
And then there is what is referred to as Dad’s Story. That’s when we all stop whatever we’re doing as Dad (that would be me) reads a seasonal story on Christmas Eve. The repertoire is limited, with works by an exclusive group of writers who have earned their way into our festive hearts: O. Henry, Capote, Singer, and a lesser-known Sylvia Seymour Akin of Memphis, Tennessee.
To understand how Dad’s Story became a family tradition, let’s go back to Christmas Eve 1974, to my childhood home in Northern California. I was a college student questioning our Western culture of mass consumption, and as Christmas approached, I thought of our family’s previous Christmas Eve – which I recalled as a whirlwind of untied ribbons and bows, torn wrapping paper, and collapsed gift boxes.
Then as now, I like opening a gift as much as anyone. But I also thought there had to be a way to remember what the day and the season are about. Something like grace.
So I announced to our family – my parents, my siblings, their spouses and children – that this Christmas, we would begin with something different. I opened our old black-leather-bound LaFranchi family Bible, and read from Matthew the story of the first Christmas.
Now many decades later, I often think back to that Christmas Eve, and the transformation I sensed the reading of a story produced, as I hunt for my copy of “The Gift of the Magi,” “A Christmas Memory,” or “Zlateh the Goat.” I know my family will be expecting a story that is an indelible part of our Christmas.
– Howard LaFranchi / Staff writer
Comfort and joy across the continents
The memory that lingers most from my childhood winters in northern India is the way my mother transformed the chilliest time of year into a season of comfort and warmth.
A country emerging from colonialism did not have a weeklong holiday, but as the year came to an end and temperatures dropped, our evenings centered around my mother’s cooking and the angeethi, a traditional coal brazier.
My mother made foods meant to warm the body from the inside out. She made crunchy bars of sesame seeds and ground peanuts; slow-roasted sweet potatoes nestled in charcoal until the embers faded; and laddoos, a sweet with fried nuts and warming spices, whose fragrance filled the air. We sat in a circle, warming our hands, as rounds of chai simmered with fresh ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom.
Even with limited resources, we knew it was also the season to spread warmth. We had an unspoken family tradition of sharing with those less fortunate and regularly donated blankets to homeless people.
Moving to the United States reshaped these rituals but didn’t erase them. Now, I keep my family’s spirit alive in smaller ways. Once a year, I make the traditional North Indian dessert – Gajar ka halwa – letting grated carrots simmer for hours in milk before adding sugar, nuts, and cardamom.
I invite friends over, and we exchange our own seasonal treats. Sometimes that means Indian delicacies, sometimes Middle Eastern, with the flaky sweetness of baklava. And there is regularly a quintessential American dessert – the pie that we have come to love, in all the different flavors. Chai with warming spices remains the anchor, a reminder of childhood memories as we share stories of our lives.
But the moment that feels most heartwarming is outside my home in Cambridge, Massachusetts: my Diwali lights, usually kept up until the new year, mingling with my neighbors’ Christmas displays. Their soft glow reminds me that I now live in a world where cultures can sit side by side – each holding its own warmth, together illuminating the dark of winter.
– Kalpana Jain / Contributor
Alone or together, take time to rest and recover
I remember the first time hearing The Emotions’ cold yet compelling classic, “What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas?” I was a kid riding in my parents’ blue Chevrolet Astro van, and I didn’t understand why the lady singing was so sad during the holidays.
Originally released in the 1970s as a song about heartbreak, the song has been used over the years as a standard to describe the feelings of people who find themselves isolated during late November and the month of December.
This is unfortunate, because there is a simple answer to what people do by themselves on Christmas: whatever they want.
When it comes to the holidays, aloneness should not always be seen as a cry for help. For some, it can be quite the intentional effort. Don’t get me wrong; as an extrovert, I love holiday gatherings. Spending time with family and friends at the end of the year feels essential, especially with folks having similar off days from work.
But something equally important is having time off to rest and recover, and time to reflect and plan for the upcoming year. It can be easier to clear your mind in isolation, away from the holiday hustle and bustle. While some people bemoan “holiday depression,” I’m proposing that we also consider holiday decompression.
What does that look like for me? It looks like reading a good book and unplugging from the phone and the constant demands of family life for a few fleeting moments. Sometimes, it looks like doing absolutely nothing. And that’s OK!
Nurturing both sides of holiday time – the quiet and the crowd – can create the sort of balance that’s helpful all year long.
After all, there are times when some people need a hug, or a warm meal. And there are times when others just want the room to grow. Or grieve.
We can be there for others – and ourselves – regardless of the season.
– Ken Makin / Cultural commentator
Savoring a night of no cooking
The comforts of home and tradition don’t always involve a ladle and a pot. In our family, Christmas Eve is when we create space for gratitude and togetherness – and it begins with a simple decision: We don’t cook.
Instead, we order out, giving the kitchen the night off until Christmas morning.
What began decades ago, when my parents were newlyweds who couldn’t afford plane tickets home, has become one of our most cherished holiday traditions. That first Christmas Eve, alone and far from family, they called in an order for a simple comfort meal: Chinese takeout.
At a time when to-do lists can unfurl like long satin ribbons and the sequence of holiday events often weaves together like a tightly spun cable-knit sweater, there’s quiet relief in doing nothing more ambitious than deciding whether to get an extra order of sweet-and-sour chicken. (The answer is yes.) It’s like swapping that wool cardigan for your favorite cotton hoodie.
Now, each year, we gather with chopsticks around cartons of crispy spring rolls, crab rangoon, little bowls of egg-drop soup, and dishes piled high with fried rice and chow mein to savor not just the food, but a brief pause.
After dinner, we sit in a circle – on the floor or curled up on couches – and take turns sharing a meaningful Christmas tidbit: a poem, song, short story, or a belly laugh that’s been waiting for the right moment. There’s no pressure or performance – just a casual night that belongs to everyone, friends and neighbors welcome.
What started with a call for comfort food to a family-run restaurant down the road has sparked a ritual that celebrates the simple joy of being together. The best part: No one has to wash the dishes.
– Stephanie Cook Broadhurst / Contributor
We are the original wrap stars
As a kid, I spent every Christmas with my family at my grandparents’ expansive farm outside Wheeling, West Virginia. Because their small town was unincorporated, without garbage pickup, all trash was either composted or burned. My grandmother, a thrifty New Englander, and my grandfather, a prudent politician, believed that wrapping gifts, only to burn the wrapping paper, was an extravagant waste of time and money.
So our family would “wrap” our gifts in the most deceptive bag possible. Think of receiving a new sweater in a grocery store bag. A teddy bear in a restaurant takeout bag. As my siblings and I entered our teens, finding gift-wrapping bags from upscale stores became a year-round game. At a friend’s house, my sister saw a bag from a high-end clothing retailer heading for the trash. “Wait! Can I have that bag?” she asked, much to the surprise of her host. That bag found new life on Christmas morning, concealing a skillet for Mom.
The farm has long since been sold, and my siblings and I have started our own families in towns with reliable garbage service. But we have carried on the Christmas no-wrap wrapping tradition. At least a few times during the year, I’ll find myself admiring a bag that housed a recent purchase, thinking, “This will be perfect for Christmas.”
– Lauren Crandall / Contributor
The gift of no gift
It’s this year’s hottest holiday item, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to find it in stores or online, and even if you could somehow manage to track it down, you wouldn’t be able to wrap your arms around it. That’s because it’s nothing. I mean that literally. It’s the gift of no gift.
A few Christmases ago, my wife’s side of the family realized that we all wanted the same thing: to slow things down and find some time to actually enjoy the holidays again. We decided to remove one of the season’s biggest time sucks and stressors: finding the “right gift” for adults who either don’t want anything; know exactly what they want and there’s no chance it’s what you have in mind; or tell you exactly what to give them so they might as well be looking over your shoulder while you hit “place your order” on Amazon. So meaningful.
Hence, the gift of no gift.
There are two caveats.
Caveat No. 1: Gifts for kids are still in play.
Caveat No. 2: Although gifts for adults are generally frowned upon, if you stumble across – stumble across, not hunt for – something really special and reasonably priced, you can go ahead and get it. Thanks to the conditions established by the gift of no gift (e.g., no gifts), your find becomes a true gift because there’s no expectation of reciprocity.
This approach isn’t about throwing a wet blanket on the festivities of the season. It’s about getting the right kind of holiday cheer to the right people. And in my experience, this mutual pact to inaction has cut down significantly on holiday stress – if you want a number, I’d say about 30%-40%.
So this holiday season, give your loved ones something really special: Give them nothing. And in doing so, give them time, peace, and presence.
– Zach Przystup / Contributor
Two cultures, twice the delight
If you were to ask my children about holiday traditions here in Mexico, they’d probably mention the colorful, starlike piñatas tied atop cars making their way to posadas, or Christmas parties, around the city. They might point out that a lot of their friends receive their extra-special gifts on Three Kings’ Day, in January. And, without fail, they would tell you about Samichlaus.
Samichlaus is not actually a Mexican tradition, but a Swiss one that my children have taken part in since they were babies, thanks to Swiss-Mexican neighbors who host an annual party.
But to my Mexican-born children, the story of Samichlaus is all theirs.
My eldest spends the morning of the party helping make fluffy white bread shaped like a man and decorated with nuts and raisins. The rest of us arrive in the late afternoon to devour a magnificent barley stew and munch on sausages sourced from a German butcher especially for the event. We socialize in Spanish, but our host calls out to her kids in the Swiss-German dialect, and I ask my children in English if they’ve eaten enough.
Just as the sun sets, we hear the silvery-sweet ringing of a handbell: “Samichlaus” has arrived.
According to folklore, the figure of Samichlaus travels across a vast forest, talking with the birds, squirrels, deer, and other animals that have been keeping an eye on the children over the course of the year. Each child is called to the front of the room to give the person representing Samichlaus a gift – perhaps a drawing, a written poem, or a singing performance. Then, Samichlaus gives each child a spirited compliment sandwich: Here’s what you did well this year, and here is what you should work on next year.
The precision of his feedback is so spot on, one of my daughters correctly predicted last year he’d be encouraging her to work on her table manners.
I leave this party each year so warmed by the community my family has built here in Mexico. But it also makes me think about bigger questions around identity and belonging: When my babies are adults, looking back at their childhood, how will it make them feel? Will they feel Mexican because they were born and raised here? Will they feel American, because that’s the culture those raising them know best? Or will it be some kind of mix? Perhaps my kids will even grow up feeling something akin to the folkloric figure of Samichlaus, with acceptance and kindness for this vast, ever-changing world.
– Whitney Eulich / Latin America editor
Instead of another necktie, try Dad Dates
After my daughter and son grew up and moved away, I asked them to stop buying me presents for Christmas. My wife and I are empty nesters who want our home to be even emptier, with more space and less clutter. For us, limiting new stuff makes lots of sense. We also want our children to invest in their futures rather than splurging on yet another necktie for Dad or sweater for Mom.
Still, gift-giving is one of the world’s great pleasures, so I let my children lavish me with generosity. But instead of presenting me with a bright new thing, they give me the gift of time.
Dad Dates are our holiday tradition. The concept is simple. During their trips home for the holidays, each of my children plans an hour or two of focused, one-on-one time with me.
One evening, at my request, my daughter sat with me near the tree, opened her laptop, and slowly walked me through the ideas she’d brainstormed as part of her interior design job. We’d had many phone conversations about her work, but while wandering around in her blueprints, I could both see her professional world and dwell within it. It was a marvel to discover the person she’d become.
I had a similar experience when my son, a roboticist, let me look over his shoulder one Yuletide afternoon as he wrote computer code. His universe is markedly different from the one I inhabit as a journalist, and our time together helped me see that as a cause for celebration. It reminded me that for all our family ties, he’s become his own distinct person, and a wonderful one at that.
Not all of our holiday Dad Dates are about career catch-ups. I sometimes ask my daughter to show me her funniest online humor, and we laugh ourselves silly watching cat videos and TV bloopers. My son and I have had some of our best Dad Dates screening vintage James Bond movies.
Anticipating my Christmas Dad Dates makes me smile. I know I’ll be getting time with two people I love, the best gift of all.
– Danny Heitman / Contributor
How we upped our holiday game
A few years ago, my husband and I started hosting Christmas at our home for extended family and friends. After the annual feast and exchange of gifts, I watched as everyone drifted apart by generation – the younger kids ran upstairs, the grandmas began to tidy up, and everyone else settled around the TV to watch “Elf.”
I felt like our time together was becoming a blur of wrapping paper and abandoned Solo cups. So, one year, I asked each group to bring their favorite board game.
Games have always played a big role in our lives. When my kids were in school, they would meet up
with friends online, in Fortnite or Minecraft. Their holiday wish lists reflected that: gaming chairs, headsets, light-up keyboards.
As a child, I loved to play dominoes with my grandparents. It was the only time I had their undivided attention, and my Papa – always my teammate – would wink and kick me under the table if he had a good hand.
There’s something about playing a game that makes it easy for people to be together. It doesn’t require eye contact or conversation. Just a willingness to sit together and connect.
The first year that everyone brought a board game, not everyone wanted to play. There was plenty of room as we pushed two tables together and dragged a couple of chairs in from the kitchen.
We had a stack of games to choose from – Catch Phrase, Taboo, Guesstures, Family Feud – and we split up into teams, with blue or yellow Post-it notes stuck to our shirts so we could tell who was on which side.
After years of listening to our offspring yell into headsets, we were now the rowdy ones, cheering our teammates on. The kids, curious about the commotion, drifted in and out, smiling at the adult revelry.
Over the years, the table grew. The younger generation joins us now as we all crowd onto benches. Some reserve their seats early with a dessert plate or drink, and my mother-in-law parks her wheelchair on the periphery to watch.
Game time is now a highlight of our annual gathering. Being part of something, whether it’s two people or 20, is what makes the holidays meaningful.
– Courtenay Rudzinski / Contributor
Showing love through thoughtful gestures
My childhood Christmases were idyllic. We sat on Santa’s lap at the mall, sang Christmas carols at church on Advent Sundays, gathered with extended family on Christmas Eve, and raced down the stairs on Christmas morning to discover what treasures had appeared by the fireplace. My older brother and I stayed in our pajamas half the day playing with our new toys. For years, I lived inside the blissful naivete of a happy holiday movie.
Almost a decade ago, my brother passed away. In the years since, I have lost friends, and my best friend lost her son.
Grief has a way of reshaping the holidays. Christmas cards with smiling families flood mailboxes and the repetitive rotation of holiday songs preaches jolly, happy times. What once felt effortlessly joyful now carries both memory and longing. The absence of loved ones during the holidays is especially sharp.
With a more grounded understanding of life’s complexities, I have altered how I approach the season – and how I reach out to others. I no longer assume the holidays feel merry for everyone. For those coping with grief and loss, I write cards offering support, remembrance, and understanding. Last year, after I sent one to a friend who had lost her sister, she contacted me, grateful for the reminder that she wasn’t alone. I’ve realized that small gestures of empathy can ripple outward, creating connections that matter far more than the perfect gift or festive decoration.
As I continue through middle age, I find steadiness in a more nuanced celebration. I lean into my faith as I reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. I offer hope by reminding others they are not alone in what they’re facing. I show love through thoughtful gestures – a handwritten note or an invitation to spend time together. And, I still embrace joy as I watch my own children race to their stockings on Christmas morning.
– Caroline Lubbers / Contributor
Four words for a more purposeful season
As our children grew older, I came to dread the holiday season’s bombardment of advertising. Black Friday and the rise of Cyber Monday. The incessant and tiring thought: Do we have enough?
When we became empty nesters, Christmas was quieter. It was a relief to put away all the old last-minute rushing around. Still, the need for something remained.
Then, my wife, Jeanne, came across a suggestion on social media: Limit gifting to four straightforward categories.
Something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read.
It has become, for us, something akin to the four elements: earth, water, air, fire. Four gifts. Fundamental. Plain and simple.
It has been a revelation, in some ways even a revolution, in our thinking.
“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” Thoreau shouted across Walden Pond.
The simplification of “what” to give has opened a broader universe of “why,” a redirection of focus into the more satisfying realms of quality and usefulness, joy and love, memory and hope. In other words, it’s a way that delivers the rest of Thoreau’s call: “Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.”
Four words – want, need, wear, read – to simplify, simplify, simplify, and to allow this time of celebration and reflection to have meaning again.
– Jim Meddleton / Contributor
Impossible to cook without love
I had been looking forward to hosting a holiday meal for my extended family ever since moving back to California, after spending my adulthood in other parts of the United States. I decided to make our version of the traditional turkey dinner, the same one my mother and grandmother cooked, the same one I’ve prepared since I started my own family.
My uncle came into the kitchen, stopping to dip a spoon into one of the pots. “It’s my mother’s mashed potatoes,” he said. It had been years since he’d tasted them. We both teared up a little and then laughed at our sentimentality.
Somewhere along the way, I had become the keeper of my family’s recipes. The dishes that taste like anticipation, joy, and comfort – I am their protector and purveyor.
But this year, that bedrock has teetered on burdensome.
Our small family has undergone big changes in the last year, with divorce, relocation, and a child off to college. Although I have continued to cook as relationships changed – a way to weather transitions with love and care – I wasn’t sure I had tradition in me this year.
I wanted to spend my precious little downtime enjoying my daughters, in quiet gratitude for the unstoppable good that carried us through 2025.
I tried to cancel the big meal. “But you’re still cooking, right?” asked my younger one. Canceling was inconceivable, I realized, and I was surprised by my relief. The assurance of a holiday touchstone, the traditions that give meaning to time – they carry extra weight this year.
Dinner will be small; just my ex, our two girls, and my niece. With our changing dynamics, I am grateful for the stability of shared expectations, the flavors that snap us back to our best moments together.
When I was very young, I asked my grandma how she learned to cook so well. “It’s how I show my family I love them,” she told me. She could say a lot without answering the question.
I think of that nearly every time I turn on the stove. It is impossible to cook without love. I feel it when I pass boiled Yukon Gold potatoes through a ricer so they’re fluffy, not smashed; as I stir in the butter, in cold chunks so that it mixes evenly as it melts; when I alternate that with the milk, steaming hot so the potatoes stay warm and get creamy. Perfect mashed potatoes are just so, and anything else isn’t a celebration.
My scaled-back holiday meal may not offer many leftovers. But I will see my uncle soon after. And I will save a bowl of mashed potatoes to connect us all.
– Ali Martin / Staff writer
Here we come a-caroling
This might be a controversial position, but I have mixed emotions about Christmas. I have nothing against the spiritual message of the holiday. I just find the commercialism and the inevitable drop of mediocre Christmas albums annoying.
But after spending a few years in Saudi Arabia, we found ourselves craving a little Christmas spirit in our home. It’s natural to pine for what you don’t have. Saudi shopping malls, until recently, were quiet, austere places, filled with happy families and squealing children, but nary a Bing Crosby tune or Christmas tree to be found. In our case, we craved items that seemed unavoidable back home in the United States. The scent of pine trees and mulled apple cider. The familiar sound of Christmas songs we had been humming since childhood. We also felt the urge to share these things with the friends we had been making in Saudi Arabia: workmates and neighbors, devout and nonreligious, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and folks who simply loved a good song.
Over the years, our carol sings were occasionally boisterous (with bodhrán drummers drumming and children shaking tambourines and kazoo-ing). In times of war or economic instability, we had quieter, more intimate gatherings, grateful for each other’s company. One year, a teacher from New Hampshire taught us her childhood favorite, “Dominick the Donkey,” who reportedly helped Santa deliver presents when the reindeer couldn’t handle the steep hills of Italy. Another year, we heard a rousing version of Elvis’ hit song, “Blue Christmas,” followed by “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” And one year, we just completed singing the exhausting “Twelve Days of Christmas,” and when a late-arriving family requested the same song, we sang it again.
Every year, we found ourselves ending with “Silent Night.” There is something about that simple tune that captures the mood of the season, as one year nears its end and another one offers the hope and promise of renewal.
– Scott Baldauf / Staff writer
Holly-jolly days can happen anywhere, any way
Growing up in Minnesota, my Christmases were just as good as any Hallmark movie classic.
There were snowballs to throw, hills to sled down, and plenty of hot cocoa to warm you up afterward. But after spending my first Christmas with my Spanish now-husband at his mother’s home in Tenerife, I reluctantly threw my long-held notions of the holidays out the window.
The window, as the stories go, was how Santa got inside on the Canary Islands, I soon learned, given that there was nary a chimney in sight. And forget about woolly sweaters. Instead of curling up in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve, my husband and his friends spent the 24th swimming at the beach.
On Christmas Day, the whole family gathered as his mother sliced thin shavings of the watermelon-sized Ibérico jamón shoulder that sat proudly – hoof and all – in her kitchen, while cooking up creamy croquetas, quail’s eggs, and flan. Meals lasted days, not hours, and where food was mere background music in Minnesota, it took center stage here.
But something was missing, and it wasn’t just the snow.
The stockings lay unceremoniously empty, the floor under the (fake) Christmas tree was bare. As it turns out, Spaniards do not exchange gifts at Christmas at all. Rather, the real celebration is two weeks later, when the Three Kings – not Santa – are said to put gifts in shoes, not stockings, that children leave out for them.
All of this was fun and funny until our own children came along. Then, the existential questions burst forth. Whose holiday tradition would we celebrate, how, and, more importantly, where?
At first, it seemed important to choose: below-zero windchill or palm trees? Green bean casserole or turrón? Gifts on Christmas or Three Kings’ Day? Whose version of Christmas would win out?
The answer, to my children’s delight, is this: everyone’s.
Now, presents go under the tree a week before Christmas, to my mother-in-law’s utter dismay. Two weeks later, we put out milk and cookies for Los Reyes Magos, and a bowl of water for their camels.
Some years, you’ll find us chowing down on cured pork loin and manchego cheese in front of a glorious sunset. Others, it’s cranberry sauce and candied yams on a snowy night.
Whether we’re building a snowman in Minnesota or lounging at a Tenerife beach, our family knows that the holidays can happen anywhere, any way – our way – as long as we’re in it together.
– Colette Davidson / Special correspondent
