Dreaming of an [Insert Adjective] Christmas…

Christmas has many constants—those traditional, steadfast hallmarks of December—but these constants may be more individual than we think.

As a military family, we have a few regular holiday traditions, but most of our Christmases took on the shape of our situation. I’ve been able to see Christmas not only morph in my mind because of the various venues in which it took place, but also because my appreciation grows in shape and texture as I age.

Spending my first twelve years in the Chicago area, for example, imprinted snatches of classic “White Christmas” memories. We usually had snow—lots of it—and spent the weeks around Christmas developing the agility in our gloved fingers in order to build snow forts in the backyard. Those years were frequently punctuated by the arrival of a new stocking, handmade by my mother from a pattern drawn on a paper bag, signifying the addition of a new little sibling. Stockings took their places above our fireplace, the Christmas tree went upstairs in the living room, and the gigantic snow globe which we all agreed was ugly but couldn’t bear to toss sat on the coffee table.

When I was twelve, my dad switched to active duty and we were unfortunately assigned to Hawaii. We nearly despaired upon hearing the news. On Christmas Day, we showed our sadness by driving to the beach and calling all of our relatives on the mainland: “Merry Christmas—Guess where we are right now!”

My youngest sister and brother’s first memories of Christmas included light-trimmed palm trees, Santa wearing board shorts and traveling via surfboard, and ukulele-backed renditions of “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say / On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.” Christmas dinner could include pineapple and Spam—yes, Spam—right next to the corn casserole. In addition, instead of being a time to reconnect with our extended family, Christmas became our core family regrouping time. My dad’s travels to the Pacific Rim usually halted, giving us a few laid-back days to take family hikes, drives, and trips to the beach.

Christmas morphed again when we were transferred back to the continental U.S. While moving to “Hot-lanta” did little to set the idea of a white Christmas in the minds of the youngest, we were certainly back in the land of hot chocolate sipped in sub-forty degree weather.

Between Georgia and South Carolina, the kids in my family began to take over the motivation behind our celebrations. Instead of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving became “Light Friday” for us, as we would awaken early in the morning, bound down the stairs to the garage, heave large boxes marked “Christmas” to the house, and begin to set up all of the decorations I associated with Christmas back in Chicago.

During our time in Georgia, I was our family’s primary tree-former, wrestling with color labeled plastic branches in an effort to construct a tree of rough symmetry; this past November, I spent the morning sleeping in late and walked downstairs to see my brother performing the finishing fluffs on the tree. I saw my seven-year-old brother carefully set out my little ceramic library next to his barn, and my ten-year-old sister place our rotating German Christmas pyramid—my favorite decoration—next to the piano.

As I’m getting older, my role in our Christmas shrinks, even as theirs grows. I find that many parts of Christmas tend to follow this pattern, swelling in volume only to sink below the waxing voice of others. My family’s traditions and experiences are far different than those of others; travel outside the U.S. brings to light the activities of other countries and cultures as well.

No one thing defines what Christmastime consists of, unless it is this: that Christ truly came for the whole world. The temporal activities we pass down fluctuate and shift, and across the globe, we celebrate as we see fit, but all this because of that blessed coming. Nothing on earth unites us so much as the savior’s birth.

Merry Christmas.

Diana Lynde, 20, recently returned to a junior year at Columbia College after a semester spent in Dortmund, Germany. Her current fields of study are communication, philosophy, and business administration, but they could easily change tomorrow. Favorite locations include moving trains, coffee shops, and gutters after rainstorms.