Wonderful, Marvelous, Magical Christmas!

Hands down, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday! There’s absolutely nothing like the anticipation, joy, sights, and sounds of the holiday season. Every family has their own Christmas traditions, and the Geis family is no different. Here’s the story of why Christmas is the best holiday, ever!

Some of my earliest memories as a child are of Christmas and celebrating the holiday season. I loved the Christmas records we would play non-stop on our console record player in the living room of our house – Andy Williams, Perry Como, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and Nat King Cole were on the regular rotation back in the day. I loved decorating the tree with my dad – stringing the lights (remember those big, bright colored lights?!) and putting our favorite ornaments on the tree as well. I loved getting on my hands and knees and checking all the wrapped presents to see which ones were mine and trying to figure out whether they were things I had put on my Christmas list. I even loved going to the Christmas Eve candlelight service to sing Christmas carols and light candles in the dark sanctuary while singing Silent Night before we’d head home to unwrap presents.

Teaching my niece Carly how to properly sneak a peek at the Christmas presents without getting caught!

Yup, we used to unwrap our presents on Christmas Eve, which seems sacrilegious to me now. My parents would save one present to open on Christmas morning so the actual day of Christmas wouldn’t seem like the letdown that it was. That tradition changed when I was in high school, and we were living in New Jersey. My Uncle Don was the head organist at St. Pat’s Cathedral in NYC and we started going to the St. Pat’s Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve to listen to my uncle play and then drive him back to New Jersey after the mass to join us for Christmas. Since we didn’t get home until 1:30 or 2:00 am we decided to scratch opening presents on Christmas Eve and switch to later on Christmas morning. And we never went back after that.

Sibling Christmas photo circa 1973

Regardless of whether we opened presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, the whole affair was scripted, structured, and rigid which didn’t bother me a bit – isn’t that what traditions are all about? And isn’t that what being a Geis is all about as well??!! 

We would all gather in the living room where our Christmas tree stood and take our seats. Me and my siblings would then deliver the presents under the tree to each recipient. Armed with our individual stack of presents, we would proceed to open our presents, one-by-one while everyone else watched. Every package was numbered, and my mom held the master package list that identified what was in which numbered package – did I mention our Christmas’s were a bit rigid and structured?! With six of us (and often more at times when family came to visit for the holidays), it took forever and a day to get all the presents opened, but I still loved every minute of it! The day would end with a delicious Christmas dinner cooked by my mom – usually fillet of beef, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade rolls, and pies for desert.

While we spent almost all of our Christmas’s at home, on a couple of occasions we made the long drive to Oklahoma to spend Christmas with my grandparents, Granny and Gramps. Both visits are seared into my memory, not because of the time we spent with them but because of the events that transpired on our drive back home after the holidays. Both times we had long drives, with the longest being from the San Francisco Bay area to Oklahoma, about 24 hours each way door to door. With all six of us in the car, it was brutal.

For one of the trips (I was about 10 years old), I remember stopping to eat breakfast at a Denny’s. I started feeling sick to my stomach and made my way to the bathroom, where there was one urinal and one stall, very unfortunately occupied. I begged with the guy in the stall to finish up quick since the situation was becoming dire. He didn’t make it out in time and I couldn’t hold it in. I’ll never forget my dad, on his hands and knees in the parking lot of the Denny’s, scrubbing my soiled underwear in the snow (yes, most folks would just throw out those soiled shorts, but not my dad – you didn’t throw out perfectly good clothing!). I was teased relentlessly by my brothers the rest of the ride home, but I can say with great pride that that was the only time I S#%t my pants (except when I was a baby of course!).

On the second trip home from our Christmas vacation that I remember so well, my dad developed a case of the hiccups. Now, that doesn’t sound too bad, except for the fact that he couldn’t stop hiccupping – absolutely nothing worked. Of course, us kids thought it was hilarious, until it continued for hour after hour – then it just got annoying. You could tell he was in distress after hiccupping non-stop for 5-6 hours – every time he hiccupped, he followed up with deep groan. When we finally got home, we were never so happy to get out of the car and away from my dad! My mom rushed him to the emergency room where they treated him with medication and fixed the problem.

You might ask, why drive for 24 hours each way with six people in a car when you could fly? Excellent question! My dad would answer you, “Why waste all that money on six airline tickets when you could get there so much cheaper by driving?”

After we all left the house, we would still gather for Christmas as a family as often as we could, and all the great memories would come flowing back. In fact, I believe I spent every Christmas with my parents (and many times, with siblings as well) until the year Laurie and I got married, when we finally broke the streak at 35 years! That’s when Laurie and I began our own Christmas traditions.

The whole family together at Christmas in Oklahoma

One of our favorite traditions when we lived in Virginia was to kick off the holiday season by spending an evening in Old Town Alexandria shopping for ornaments for the tree, and then enjoying a great Italian meal at one of our favorite restaurants, Landini Brothers. Another tradition was to go into DC to see the show ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Ford’s Theater where Abraham Lincoln was shot – the theater is completely refurbished to look just like it did back in 1865, including wooden chairs (padded, thankfully)! As part of that evening, we also usually walked to the Ellipse to see the National Christmas tree.

Another favorite tradition of ours was to take the Acela train up to New York City to spend a long weekend taking in all the holiday sights and sounds of the city, eating at some of our favorite restaurants, and seeing a show or two on Broadway – there’s nothing quite like Christmas in NYC! Those traditions are gone now with our move to Florida, but on Christmas Eve we still get Chinese takeout and watch the movie ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ like we have for the past 25 years.

Laurie and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in NYC

Both Christmas’s after my mom and dad passed away were a bit sad and melancholy, since they both loved Christmas and always worked to make the day and season so special for us as kids. Even though we didn’t spend many Christmases together in their later years, we would still talk on Christmas day and share great memories of Christmas’s past. My love of everything Christmas is all because of my mom and dad!

When I was working at CNA and especially later in my career when things were crazy with constant travel and long hours during the week and on weekends as well, I would start looking forward to the Christmas holiday season around August. Since it was difficult to take much time off during the year due to my schedule, I would always plan to take 2-3 weeks off at Christmas to enjoy the holidays (and also to ensure I didn’t lose too much leave!). As the holidays approached, I found myself counting the days before my vacation would begin. And once it did, I found myself counting the days until I had to head back to work. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my job – it was simply the fact that I enjoyed my time off over the holidays so much that I didn’t want it to end! I was always a bit sad at the end of the Christmas season and my vacation – taking down the Christmas decorations was drudge work and pretty depressing on top of that. But Laurie would always help me through it and do things to make every day I was on vacation a special one.

Christmas dinner at home in Alexandria, Virginia

Things changed once we retired and moved down to Sarasota. Even though I still anticipate and look forward to the holiday season, it’s not as much of a big deal as it was before. I think that’s because I’m pretty much on vacation every day now in retirement, so the holiday season just blends in a bit more with our regular routine. That doesn’t make it any less fun and exciting once it arrives – it just makes it a bit different.

And of course, food, wine and spirits are all a critical part of our Christmas holiday celebrations! We love inviting our friends over for holiday happy hours and holiday dinner parties. And we always open special wines to enjoy throughout the season as well. Laurie also makes sure I have at least one advent calendar that focuses on wine or bourbon so I can enjoy the lead up to Christmas with a nightly glass of wine or dram of bourbon, or both if I’m really lucky!

Our Christmas tree in Lakewood Ranch, FL

As I write this, it’s mid-November and a cold front is scheduled to come through tomorrow. Once it arrives, we will be having our coldest temperatures down here in Sarasota since last February, with highs in the upper 60’s and low 70’s for the next week or so and lows in the 40’s and 50’s – brrrrrrrrrrr! And of course, the house is all decorated for the holiday season and Christmas music is playing every evening as well! In short, life is good!!

This is my last post for the year – I’ll be taking my regular sabbatical from blogging for the month of December but will return with my first blog of the 2025 on January 3rd. Until then, both Laurie and I hope you have a happy and healthy holiday season filled with laughter, great wine and food, and great friends and family as well!

Hiding our pup Lincoln’s Christmas gift squeaky toy from him on Christmas day