DD_ss Christmas Traditions

Have you created your own Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa celebrations and traditions or have you carried them over from when you were a child? What do you do which is very special to you and your family?

One of my "traditions" is the Christmas tree. *soft smile* Beloved has indulged me for the last five years in my hunt for the perfect white pine. After letting the branches drop and putting the lights on, the ornaments come out...many belonged to my mother, were hand-made by me or other family members, and most have some story behind them.

Another one of my traditions is the Santa Clause collection. It started shortly after my mother was married, but she received a new Santa every year. The year she died, one of her best friends mailed a Santa addressed to me, and thus I inherited the tradition. *wry smile* I've been promising pictures of various things...I'll add the collection to the list.

Beloved didn't have many family traditions, but one that he and his friends started is BaconFest. Because we have so many December birthdays, about seven years ago we decided that instead of doing gifts at Christmas, we would all get together and have a fest and share the most important Christmas gift of all: friendship. As a theme, we chose bacon...every food item HAD to have bacon as an ingredient! BaconFest has grown every year since that first gathering of the six of us.

Do you reserve a small part of your Christmas to revive or reaffirm the power exchange which lies between your slave and you?

The last two years, I have done two stockings for Beloved. One is for the family celebration, one is for my Beloved Master. I don't know if this is a reaffirmation, but it's fun.

Christmas can be a struggle for some. It's a time of the year when the stress of shopping and scrounging for extra money can turn normally pleasant people into Scrooges...How do you meld those heartbreaking parts of your life with this time of year when the smile on your face feels like a mask?

Back when Beloved and I were in college, we started up a silly tradition for EXACTLY this reason...although in a way, it IS putting on a mask. We have dressed up...me in elf-ears and silly clothes, him with one of those door-bows tied in his hair, and we arms ourselves with a big bag of mini candy-canes. Then we head to the mall! There is usually no plan to BUY anything, but we cheerfully approach worn-out parents, tired sales clerks, and fussy kids and offer them a candy cane and a Merry Christmas. I think of it as a way to remind people what this is supposed to be about.

It's the time of year when some look at empty chairs at their dining room table and know that person will never raise a glass of wine in toast again. It's a time of the year when some spend nights twisting and turning in their beds trying to hold the devastating ache of loss inside. Christmas can be bittersweet.

We try to focus on the good memories. For some reason, I have become the person who inherits the stockings of those who are no longing in this world. Most of the stockings were hand-made...my mother's, Beloved's father's, other friends. There is an ache every year when I open the stocking box, and it is bittersweet, but I also remember special Christmases with those people...The little surprises, the silly stories. They live on in our hearts.