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Christmas Eve only comes once a year, but we will be busy tomorrow, so we celebrated Christmas Eve tonight.

My family has only one binding tradition when it comes to Christmas Eve: New England Clam Chowder. The tradition started when we lived in New York. It was 1986 December which would make it my first Christmas. My family came back to Denver to visit for Christmas. However, the house that we lived in was stripped of its essentials. So, my parents were forced to borrow a pot from the neighbours in order to cook. For some odd reason, clam chowder was the meal of choice. It's now become famous that people from as far as Hawai'i and Missouri practice the clam chowder tradition inspired by us.

We also opened gifts tonight. When we were younger (and our parents spoiled us with Christmas gifts), we had so many gifts that we could actually open one on Christmas Eve. Now, we don't have so many, so we just opened them all tonight. I got the absolute best gift ever. For fifteen years, my mother had been working on a cross-stitch stocking for me. For the past few years, I've asked my mother only to finish it for Christmas. This year, she did.¹ It was so touching to see it finally complete and hanging over the fire. It's seriously going to be one of the things that I'll forever cherish.

I kind of felt like a schmuck because I got a few gifts, but I didn't give any to anyone because I'm a Poor College Student™. My sister and brother-in-law got me a six-pack of eight-ounce cans of Coca-Cola² along with a movie. My father got me a wireless card for my laptop because I broke my other one. It was an old one that he repackaged, but it's always the thought that counts with gifts, so I don't care. My niece got me two pencils which had the little clips torn off of them. It was kind of weird. I got one other gift, but I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is because I never opened it. It was from my brother. I don't talk about it a lot³, but my brother and I are estranged. It's a complicated issue. Well, it's actually a simple issue that's become complicated. Regardless, I don't feel it proper to take a gift from someone who's not on your best side. It's become a yearly tradition for me for the past four years. It's not the way that I wished it would turn out, but it's really been hard for my parents. I feel that I should stop writing too much more about it.

Anyway,⁴ life has it's goods and bads. I'm celebrating them both this Christmas. As I was out shopping with my mother today with two-metre high walls of snow lining the roads, I realised that there is Christmas and there is the idea of Christmas. I'm in love with the idea of Christmas: the festivities, the carols, the traditional foods and drinks, the winter clothes and weather, the decorations and traditions. Christmas really is sometimes a pain for some to deal with. Still, I have high hopes that the idea of Christmas will become a reality.

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1. With the “help” of a friend.
2. To go with my collection.
3. Here, at least.
4. By the way, whenever I utter the word anyway, it means that I'm done talking to you.