Culturess writers on their favorite Christmas moments

Buckie Wells

For my family, Christmas is a two-part celebration that begins the evening before as our Brazilian heritage really takes center stage in celebration of “Papai Noel” and our Christian faith. Though there’s less than a dozen of us who gather around the table, my grandmother and aunts spend all day making enough food for the entire neighborhood. Then, we play a game that pretty much follows the rules of White Elephant. But the game itself is timed and my very competitive family will play to the death. Which means, there are typically a handful of really crappy and random gifts mixed with a $100 gift card that will force my dad and grandmother to draw blood. Once the clock strikes midnight, we start to open our gifts. As a child, this meant that I got home at 2 a.m. too tired to play with my Barbie dolls but excited to wake up a few hours later and play with new stuff before retuning to my grandmother’s house to eat leftovers.

However, once my parents got divorced, Christmas mornings changed a little bit. Instead of going to grandmother’s again, my siblings and I went to our mother’s house to open more gifts and drink mimosas. Starting around brunch, we stay pretty low-key and watch Christmas favorites, like The Family Stone (my all-time favorite) and Rise of the Guardians.

My older brother always said that when he had children (his first child was born this year) that he wouldn’t keep anyone up until midnight to open presents on Christmas Eve. But as I get older, I know I won’t ever let this tradition die. Even if I choose to change it up a little, for me, it’s never truly Christmas until I’m at my grandmother’s screaming at whoever stole the Bath and Body Works body mist that I really wanted for myself just ten seconds before the buzzer went off.