The Roanoker - November/December 2020 - 70

As I get older, I am trying to accept that even
traditions need to change to keep the joy in the
holidays. So a new tradition over the past five years
is basing Christmas dinner on attendees' dietary
restrictions. Creating a very different menu based on
who comes that year is my new challenge: glutenfree, meat allergies, meat lovers, kid-friendly, and on
and on. The result of this new tradition is that each
Christmas we enjoy a very different meal - delicious
and varied. A great new tradition! -Denise Koff
Because we tend to do a lot of home cooking on
Christmas Day, one of our simple but favorite family
traditions includes picking up takeout from Cafe Asia
2 on our way home from church on Christmas Eve. After we
enjoy our dinner, we take time with our daughter to leave out
milk and fresh-baked cookies for Santa, sprinkle reindeer
food in the grass for Rudolph and the gang, and - if she's still
on the nice list - let her open one gift before bedtime. On
and around Christmas Day we also enjoy visiting with family,
often sharing meals that include favorite family dishes
from both sides - oyster stew on my wife's side and German
rouladen on mine. More than anything, it's the special time
spent with friends, family and loved ones that we cherish
most each and every year. -Jeff Wood

In the past 30 or so years, I've had
two Christmas trees, each lasting
a long time. My current tree is a
small, white artificial tree that I
simply plug and unplug each year,
storing it completely decorated
in the basement. Its predecessor
was an upper branch of a tulip
tree that I cut down in a friend's
yard and decorated, again
plugging and unplugging each
Christmas because it was
already decorated. This tree
was my Charlie Brown Tree:
ugly, spare, loved. -Dan Smith

Baking has always been a huge holiday tradition in my
family. My mom would tell me about my grandmother and
great aunts spending weeks before the holidays baking
different cakes and storing them in an antique pie safe. My
mom always made an applesauce cake and a three-tiered
coconut cake at Christmas. The fluffy frosting and coconut
looked like mounds of snow. I bake lots of cookies. It really
isn't the holiday until those traditional Scottish shortbread
cookies come out of the oven. -Patty Jackson

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

One of the things
that I hold close to
my heart is spending
Christmas with my
family. My brother
and I were adopted
when we were just
little tykes. My
adopted parents took
us to Hotel Roanoke
every year around
Christmastime
to celebrate our
adoption (we were adopted in December -
what a fabulous Christmas gift!). I remember
all of the beautiful Christmas decorations,
the waiter tossing our Caesar salad in a big
wooden bowl tableside, and best of all, when I
was just a little girl, my daddy teaching me to
slow dance as the piano player serenaded us
with big band music. We've had many family
celebrations at Hotel Roanoke and the grand
ole lady always makes them all very special for
us. -Becky Ellis

Many years ago when my three sons were still at home,
they gave me a DVD of Stanley Kramer's 1963 comedy
classic "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" on Christmas Eve.
They knew it was my all-time favorite movie. We watched
it together that night. As adolescents then, they loved it
as much as I did. Ever since, we still gather as a family on
Christmas Eve for dinner and then watch that zany movie
about a pursuit for buried treasure even though we know
in advance every scene, the most hilarious lines and how it
ends. -Nelson Harris

One of my family's favorite holiday
traditions is finding an afternoon
in the midst of shopping and
baking and visiting to get outside
for a local hike. We bundle up
and move fast and always worry
that we'll run out of daylight.
But these hikes are some of our
most magical - often with a
dusting of snow or the surprise
of icicles. We always make it
home with lots of memories! -
Christina Nifong

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The Roanoker - November/December 2020

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