As the year winds down and we contemplate the joys of Christmas, we here at the Record asked local folks (and our own staff) if they had a Christmas Eve tradition. Here’s what they told us:
JONATHAN COTE, New Westminster mayor
It’s actually from my wife’s side of the family. The book The Night Before Christmas, the book is about 80 years old. I guess it’s been read through the generations and passed along through the family. The book is definitely starting to age and does look like an 80-year-old book, but it has been read almost every single year except for two occasions.
One was actually last year because we were temporarily renting and were in a panic because we couldn’t find the book in our temporary rental and thought it had been lost. Thankfully, when we moved in June, the book was found at that location during the move.
We are actually looking forward to dusting off the book and resuming the tradition again this year with the kids. That duty has been passed on to myself – I read to the girls. Since they were little babies up until now I have been reading the book. Basically the tradition has gone that the book gets passed on to someone, as the kids start to get a little bit older, who has young children.
JORDEN FOSS, 2017 Business Person of the Year, co-founder Steel & Oak
It has changed since I got married, which was 11 years ago. For the last 11 years, since we moved back to New Westminster, my wife and I host both sides of our family to our house. We basically put a huge table across the living room because the house isn’t big enough to have everybody sit in the dining room. There’s about 20 of us and we do a traditional Ukrainian Christmas dinner. …All the leftover perogies get fried up with some sausage the next morning for breakfast. Both sides of the family come together, which is really nice. They are both in New West, so it’s really convenient for us. When you get married, it’s interesting to see if both sides get along, and we are lucky ours do.
JUDY DARCY, New Westminster MLA
When I was a kid, because I was born in Denmark, the Danish tradition was to open gifts on Christmas Eve. That’s what we did all the time I was growing up. There wasn’t one Santa, there were lots of elves that came and delivered things. Growing up it was kind of, how do they know, here we are in Canada and somehow the elves make a special trip to see us when they were visiting everyone else (around the world). That was the tradition when I was growing up.
These days our big family day thing is on the 25th with the turkey and all the trimmings. The evening before, we have a quiet meal. Sometimes I do a roast pork or something special, but not enormous and elaborate. I wrap the Christmas gifts, usually. I am usually up until pretty late at night.
It’s a quiet family evening, wrapping gifts, having a nice meal, and sometimes apple cider.
My son, who is now in his 30s, for a lot of years he would put out the cookies and milk on Christmas Eve by the fireplace, even if it was a gas fireplace. It’s a pretty simple, quiet family evening – Christmas music, wrapping gifts.
NADINE NAKAGAWA, 2017 Citizen of the Year
We always decorate sugar cookies together – my mom, my sister and I. We do quite an elaborate thing with a lot of sprinkles, special little candies that go on top. It turns into a bit of a competition on who can do the most elaborate and fancy cookies. I usually do the most delicious looking ones – lots of frosting on them.
My family is on the island. If we are all over there for Christmas Eve, we will do it then, but if I go over earlier, we will do it earlier. My mom usually makes them and we decorate them together. By the time I get over there, they are usually ready.
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, executive director, Massey Theatre
We spend Christmas Eve in my mother’s log house in the Cariboo woods, which my parents started building in 1973. Dad cooks a mountain of schnitzel, which can take the better part of the day to prepare, but it is essential!
We have a fire in the fireplace, sing Christmas carols; my seven-year-old son plays carols on the piano that was my great-grandmother’s. Then we open a single gift in my father’s side’s family tradition.
The kids are determined to trap Santa this year, so this will add a new wrinkle to how we spend the hours after bedtime.
STEPHEN O’SHEA, executive director, Arts Council of New Westminster
Christmas Eve is a jam-packed time for our little family. We load up the car and drive out to Abbotsford for not one but two family events in a single day.
We start at my wife’s house for a flurry of turkey, presents, and any football-related sports match we can find on television. A tradition that didn’t catch on was the annual poker game we play for my father in-law’s yearly jar of spare change; that ended quickly after he didn’t win the pot.
We then load up the family in the late afternoon and head over to my parents’ home. This family tradition is a little bit different, with some delivery pizza and a two-litre bottle of cola. The hope this year is to get a single photo of my mother and her four grandchildren.
After a maximum of two hours, Gramma’s (and two Great Grammas’) limit, we load up the car full of gifts given to my daughter and return to New Westminster in order to celebrate my daughter’s actual birthday as a family on Christmas Day.
The only tradition I truly keep on Christmas is I aim to have a large cola Slurpee as I feel for all the gas station attendants who have to work over the holidays.
DAVE JONES, Chief Constable, New Westminster Police Department
As our family has grown, the traditions of Christmas Eve have only changed in what we do, but not in why we’re doing it.
It has been a time to relax and spend time with both family and friends. Christmas Eve dinner with the immediate family members followed up with a visit with a few close friends, allows us to wind down and prepare for what has often been a hectic Christmas Day.
With several of our family members involved in policing, we have become accustomed to having someone working on Christmas Day, and taking some quieter time the night before is a part of remembering what the holiday is about.
DAN RICHARDSON, president and GM, New Westminster Sr. Salmonbellies
Since the early 1990s when our kids were little, we got together in the first couple weeks of December to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie.
It’s just a fun way to get family together for Christmas drinks. We usually order some take-out food and spend the evening laughing and repeating lines from the movie. We finish the evening with rum and eggnog in our Christmas Vacation moose glasses. A good way to kick off the busy Christmas season.
CHRIS LAXTON, head coach of Douglas College women’s soccer team
Douglas College women’s soccer team will be wrapping presents for the Vancouver Street Soccer League participants’ holiday party. They will also be child minding at the party so all can enjoy the evening.
LARA GRAHAM, publisher, New West Record
We watch classic Christmas movies with the kids, like Elf,our favourite, Christmas Vacationwith Chevy Chase, then, if the weather cooperates, enjoy the lights in our neighbourhood with hot chocolate.
THERESA MCMANUS, reporter
We gather at a family member’s house in Coquitlam, where we have a casual dinner and enjoy a walk to and around Lafarge Lake to view the Christmas lights. While my boys and their cousins hang out – and undoubtedly play a few video games – the rest of us enjoy some family time. At one point in the evening, the kids will all head upstairs, where my niece reads The Polar Express.After heading home with my immediate family and getting the kids off to bed, I will do any last-minute wrapping and get the stockings ready for Santa. I usually try to relax and enjoy a few quiet moments soaking up the ambience of the Christmas tree and twinkling lights – and enjoying the quiet before the hustle and bustle of Christmas morning’s gift opening and turkey dinner preparations.
CAYLEY DOBIE, reporter
Before my fiancé came along (about four years ago), my parents, my sister and I would have a casual dinner with my grandma before popping some popcorn and watching a holiday movie – the most popular choice was (and still is) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase.
Today, Christmas Eve is spent attending Christmas Eve mass with my fiancé’s family. After that, it’s dinner with his mom, brother and sister-in-law (and this year, a niece). At midnight, we exchange gifts and toast the holiday.
DAN OLSON, sports editor
We pile into the family van and do a tour of some of the local Christmas lights around the neighbourhood. A few places you’ll get crowds and you can walk up, offer a donation if they are taking them, and share some hot chocolate.
JULIE MACLELLAN, assistant editor
Since my family and my husband’s are based in Ontario, we have an every-other-year plan: one year we fly back to Ontario for the extended clan gathering; the next we spend here at home.
When it’s an extended clan gathering, Christmas Eve is spent with my husband’s side, marking the night with a full Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner, including its traditional 12 dishes (confession: I skip the pickled herring course).
We also include a family trip to Christmas Eve mass and, after the kids are gone to bed, late-night merrymaking by the adults in preparation for Santa’s arrival. Required components of the evening include a viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life, the completion of a (usually fiendishly difficult) jigsaw puzzle, and partaking of the brother-in-law’s excellent wine cellar.
This year is an at-home year, which means spending it somewhat more quietly. There will, however, be Christmas movie viewing (likely A Muppet Christmas Carol this year), a jigsaw puzzle and probably Christmas Eve mass as well.
Most importantly, there will be time together with our five-year-old daughter – for whom Christmas Eve must also include, of course, putting out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.
