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December 24, 2004
Christmas Eve Gift!
Our family has always had a tradition of "Christmas Eve gift". The first person to say that to someone else is supposed to get a small gift, though in our family it's devolved into a fierce competition just to 'get' each other. The gift is optional. It's more like a verbal game of tag these days, and some of us take it fairly seriously.
My dad is worse than a little kid about it, doing things like calling me at 5 a.m. or answering his phone with "Christmas Eve Gift!" Not that I'm any better. I've done the same to him. The best one I got on him was a couple of years ago when I waited until late afternoon on Christmas Eve before I called him. He thought I'd forgotten, see, so he just answered the phone like normal. Gotcha, Dad! He thought that was pretty funny.
It wasn't until I'd gotten older that I discovered not all families followed this tradition. (Mike thought I'd lost my mind our first Christmas Eve morning together when I shook him awake yelling "Christmas Eve Gift! Haha! I got you!") And I've always wondered where it started.
I've done a little Googling this morning, and it seems to be a Southern thing.....though I did find one person who reported his grandpa, who had reportedly been raised by Davy Crockett, always followed the Christmas Eve gift tradition. It's apparently so old that no one remembers why or from where it came. Everything I've found says pretty much the same thing. "We do it because that's the way we've always done it."
So. Any of y'all follow this tradition or know its origins?
Posted by Rita at December 24, 2004 12:31 PM
Comments
I would also love to know the origin of this phrase as my family also has this same tradition. Have you had any luck on the background of this tradition?
Posted by: Anita Hall at December 26, 2004 08:52 PM
Nothing definitive, though it's apparently a very old tradition....as in predating George Washington's time old. Most of what I've found points towards an Irish origin, though there were a few references that it was British....and even one that it was Swedish!
I was just glad to find so many other families practice it. I thought for years we were just weird.
Posted by: rita at December 27, 2004 05:26 AM