My husband and I arrived slightly late as we pulled up to the Fox Hollow Inn restaurant one night in mid-December.

Lit up in all its festive glory with green, red and white lights, Fox Hollow looked like Cinderella's Ball and we were dressed appropriately in chic black. Tom even wore an uncharacteristic tie.

We joined our extended family upstairs in the Hunt room decorated with Poinsettias and a warm fireplace blazing.  The piano player sang and played holiday songs. 

Each family has a "tune" that resonates with one another to help create traditions.  Sometimes something so random sticks—like a nickname.  Yet other times, with the best intentions things don't become a tradition.

Every year, as far back as I can remember, my family began the holidays by enjoying a leisurely Christmas dinner at a nice restaurant.   Sometimes we'd go to Maine Maid Inn but for many years now we've been meeting at Fox Hollow. 

My mother's one stipulation is, "no kids allowed.  You must be sixteen to attend."  

We adults dine slowly and peacefully, enjoying a pre-holiday get-together before our Christmas Eve fish dinner with presents and more celebrations on Christmas Day. 

Almost two weeks before, Christmas dinner offers a reprieve—a pause in time from all the shopping and schlepping where we catch up with one another. Aunts would babysit for children while my sister, Kathleen, and her husband or later my husband and I would enjoy ourselves. 

In 30 some odd years, only once was dinner interrupted while my friend Lisa babysat for my sister's children who were sick and they abruptly left the restaurant mid-meal.

Only once was Christmas dinner ever canceled—last December for the first snowstorm of the year. Once I was deathly ill with the flu and sent Tom alone.

As a young girl fidgeting with excitement in anticipation of Christmas Day, dining elegantly was a struggle.  As I grew older and then became a parent, I'm more acutely aware of the passage of time and how celebrating demarcates another year gone by.    

Like a flowing river, you can never step foot in the same spot twice, each year is different and precious.  As our family grows and we're all getting older, who knows how many more we'll have with my mother and father presiding over the family. 

It started with our grandparents, Aunt Helen, my mother and father and sister and grew to the next generation now. As political administrations changed: Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes and Obama, our family made it through leaner times and prospered in good years.

Christmas dinner was there like the moon illuminating our path through another year – the adults carving their way through it all  as children grew.  We'd laugh about the year gone by or make faces puckering up our lips to look like fish.

One year our Aunt Helen had come back from a trip to Scotland and shared a tradition she'd learned called "Christmas Crackers."  British traditions explain that handling these crackers two people pull apart a small candy-looking tube like a wish bone literally cracking the present open.

My aunt carefully packed different items – refrigerator magnets, toothpicks, the all-time favorite pickle plucker that no one guessed right. Inside one was a little sack of coal.  Ha Ha!   We'd laugh.

"You got the coal."

For more than a decade since, every year the person who cracked open the coal would be responsible to buy next year's gifts, becoming the gatekeeper of these gags.  We'd pass around the "cracker" gifts during dessert and someone would inevitably get the coal.

Except for me. In more than twenty years, I've never gotten the coal. 

Tom however, seems to have an on and off switch back and forth with my niece and nephew. 

They've even added notes to "please remember where you put the coal when you come home from the restaurant."   And once my nephew had to buy a new bag of coal after losing his prize by accident.

This year as Christmas dinner passed and Santa came and went, our immediate family sat resting on New Year's Day and created another tradition.

First, we celebrated Daisy Dog's 2^nd birthday, then we each wrote out goals for the year:  Read more.  Play instruments longer.  And for my husband and I—exercise everyday.  It's interesting to see year after year if these goals manifest or not--but it's fun hearing what everyone wants to do.

As our daughter, Melanie helped me clean out the pantry and refrigerator and make a shopping list for Whole Foods.  I felt good that I could check off one thing on my New Year's list—to eat healthier meals together.

What are your holiday traditions?