“Happy Holidays! “Season’s Greetings!”

These are the greetings we hear as we go through the final days of the hustle and bustle of preparing for Christmas. Rarely do we hear a clerk or a service person offer the old familiar “Merry Christmas” greeting. It seems we have become so fearful of offending someone and so intuned to being politically correct, we opt for the safer general greetings rather than specifically referring to this special time as “Christmas”.

Our children in college come home for “semester break” and our elementary school grandchildren celebrate with the “Winter Holiday” parties. The high schools enjoy “Winter Break”. Nowhere do you hear that the real reason for vacations, parties and celebration is Christmas…the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

We realize there are people of other faiths who do not share this celebration with Christians, but that should not diminish our enthusiasm for the observance of one of the most significant events in our faith tradition.

With that being said, we at the Snyder household are looking forward to gathering for our traditional ways of celebrating Christmas. Early in December those who live locally get together to help Mom and Dad put up the Christmas tree. We still have a “real” tree decorated mostly with “kid-made” ornaments from the elementary school days. Each one has a few favorites from the past.

Christmas Eve, the family comes to our house for a traditional chili supper and then on to Christmas Eve Mass. Christmas morning is mass confusion as all the grandchildren descend the stairs to see what Santa has brought them. This year there will be eleven grandchildren to share that magical moment together. Following Santa’s visit we have a relaxing morning with brunch in our pj’s.

Early Christmas afternoon is reserved for visits with in-laws or catching up on some sleep. Later in the afternoon we gather around the table for Christmas dinner and open the gifts under the tree following dinner.

Each family has their own special way of celebrating the most joyous occasion. May you and your family treasure this time together. We wish you all a very

“Merry Christmas!”