Christmas Adam And The Beauty Of Minor Traditions

Tomorrow is Christmas Adam!

What? You don’t know what Christmas Adam is? Adam came before Eve, so December 23, the day before Christmas Eve, is obviously Christmas Adam.

Some of you might be groaning at yet another “dad joke.” So be it. It is indeed a dad joke, but it’s not mine; it’s my father-in-law’s. Christmas Adam is thus one of those little Christmas traditions that originated in my wife’s family and passed on to us. It’s silly, it’s unnecessary, and it’s absolutely a tradition we will keep and hope our kids do when they grow up. For the little “t” traditions are a way of celebrating the big “T” Tradition of Christmas: celebrating the birth of God made Man. St. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century bishop and theologian, gave voice to the heart of the feast in a sermon:

“Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels.”

God’s dwelling among men is what brought “Joy to the World,” for, as the infant would say when he was grown up, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). The kingdom is present when the King is there.    

That reality is what makes Christmas ultimately so joyful. Jesus is King and he is also the New Adam, the new beginning of the human race. Yet he doesn’t wipe all of history clean to start over. He renews and confirms the goodness of our nature as men and women. His choice to be born in a human family confirms and sanctifies that institution.

That doesn’t mean that Christian faith is simply living naturally. But it does mean that natural human life is something that can be taken up into a life lived for Christ. It is the ordinary life of meals, chores, walks, games, and fun that is the basis for living life in Christ. That is why those little “t” traditions surrounding the holidays that are holy days of celebration of the big “T” Tradition are so wonderful and worth keeping.

This column began with a particularly silly tradition of calling January 23 “Christmas Adam.” In my wife’s family, the Christmas tree was hidden in the woods behind her house during Advent. On the evening of Christmas Adam, once she and her siblings were in bed, her parents would bring in the tree and decorate it. That way, in the morning, the kids would come out to find things magically different: there was a smell in the air from the pine that immediately signaled what day it was.

As things go, we have not done it exactly like my in-laws either. Our practice, in part due to the fact that we have lived in a city and now a suburb without a woods behind us, is to buy the tree close to the date, bring it in on Christmas Adam, and then clean up and get ready for the big decoration push on Christmas Eve.

Both of these ways are somewhat different from my family’s traditions, which involved putting up the tree and decorating for Christmas immediately after Thanksgiving. My wife and I, like her parents, follow the German Catholic tradition of keeping Advent as a time of waiting and preparation. This gives Christmas Adam and Christmas Eve a certain punch. Finally putting up that tree and setting out the Nativity set—minus the baby Jesus!—is a powerful experience on Christmas Adam.

For our family, we have had the tradition of going to Christmas Eve or Christmas Midnight Mass, then having treats, drinks, and goodies. Then, when our children are all in their rooms, the Christ Child—using the hands and feet of Mom and Dad—brings the gifts in from the back of the parental closet, puts them around the tree, and loads up the stockings. My wife always gets a suitable collection of candy, goodies (including a tradition from my family—cans of black olives), doodads, and thingamajigs of various sorts, which I then divvy up among the various stockings.

The stockings are themselves a bit of tradition from my side, for they were made for the children by my late Aunt Esther. She would knit a stocking—complete with name and a Christmas image—for each new baby. She made them for her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, her nephews and great-nephews, nieces and great-nieces, and even some of her friends. My cousin Kyle says Aunt Esther made over 200 before she died.

 Once the presents are under the tree (or hidden, if it’s a gift that is too big to disguise) and the stockings filled, my wife and I finally go to bed. Since we have been to Christmas Mass the night before, we set a decent time to wake up—an easier task now that we don’t have very young children. None of the children are allowed to come downstairs until everyone is up and ready. Once the appointed time arrives and the younger children have roused their older siblings, my wife puts in the egg bake and the French toast for brunch. When we are sure everything is in place, the kids are invited down the stairs to check that baby Jesus has arrived and to find their stockings.

We then read the Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel as a family, pray together, and eat breakfast. The Advent candles we have been lighting during the previous weeks are now burned down and the big Christmas candle is lit every meal. Instead of singing “O Come, Emmanuel,” we sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” before meals.

After breakfast come the presents. We try to do one present at a time so that everyone can see what everyone is getting—and so that the person writing down names for thank-you notes can get the correct information. We play Christmas music all day long. We also take breaks periodically so that people can play with, try on, or use the gifts they are getting. That also keeps the pleasure of gifts and surprises going all through the day.

Presents within the family always have a kind of riddle on the tag. This is another of my wife’s family traditions, and she is very good at writing them. For example, “hall pass” was the clue for a bathrobe, and “stepping stones” is on the tag for a novelty pair of Stonehenge socks this year. Now that most of the children are taller than their mom, the standard gift of new socks has transformed into a sock-snowball fight (ten pairs of white and ten of black, with each sock rolled into a ball). We divide into two teams and pelt each other from opposite sides of the living room.

Our tradition for Christmas afternoon is to make homemade pizzas. And we always watch a Christmas movie. Yes, Die Hard counts! But we have some favorites: Muppet Christmas Carol and A Child’s Christmas in Wales are two of family favorites. For myself, It’s A Wonderful Life is always the best. There is always something delightful about sitting on the couch with the kids and cuddling as we watch Mr. Scrooge change or George Bailey discover the blessings he’s been given—and the blessing he’s been to others.

We love these traditions because they help us remember our own blessings—and the greatest blessing of all in the Word made Flesh! They all have a beauty to them because they decorate our own family life that has been hallowed by the Christ Child coming into the world in a family. We’ll be celebrating, remembering, and proclaiming the great theological truths of Christmas as we always do. But we’ll also be keeping our little traditions, things that we will remember as a part of the wonderful life we’ve been given. Part of the life Christ gave us that can serve as the basic building material of a life of service to him.  

Have a very blessed Christmas! May your own traditions bring joy to you and yours. You can get an early start tomorrow on Christmas Adam. 

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.