The Owen family Christmas

Devin Owen
MSMU Class of 2026

(12/2024) Growing up, I was always told that Christmas should be my favorite time of year because I got to have ‘two Christmases’ due to my parents’ divorce. Personally, I thought it was unnecessarily tense and not as "holly jolly" as it was supposed to be. As I got older though, I managed to reignite my love for the holiday season with new traditions and better ways of carrying out the older ones.

One of my favorite holiday traditions is Christmas Morning Breakfast, which has been a tradition from my mom’s side of the family since before I was born, with my sisters experiencing it long before I came along. Each year, we spend Christmas Eve prepping a casserole that my mom calls "Christmas Morning Breakfast," it’s made of egg, sausage, cheese, and bacon. I’ve had other people make it for me before when our holiday custody agreements would change, but I don’t think anybody makes it as good as my mom does. Come Christmas morning, mom gets up and cooks the casserole while we all gather and wait for her in the living room to open presents.

In recent years though, the tradition of Christmas morning has changed a little bit. In September of 2020 my niece, River, was born and a year and a half later, my nephew, Wilder, came along changing the trajectory of how the day was spent. Since then, we have spent Christmas morning over at my sister’s house. Now, we still prep the casserole the night prior, but we bring it over with us to cook there instead while the kids are hollering out to anyone who will listen about opening their presents. In addition to the casserole, my sister makes homemade cinnamon rolls and preps coffee and orange juice for anyone who might want it. We spend the morning watching the kids ripping through wrapping paper and hearing the sounds of laughter and love flow through the house with the delicious scent of sweet cinnamon and vanilla wafting through the air. I sit on the floor with the two human embodiments of my heart as they climb all over me, giving hugs and kisses, helping me open my own presents, fighting over who gets to sit next to me for breakfast and asking me to play with them and the toys that they got. Moments like these are my favorite, holiday or not.

From Christmas morning I move on to time with my dad and his side of the family. Around 1 o’clock my brother and I will head over to my grandparents’ house to give them their presents from us. My absolute favorite part of this is giving my grandfather his gift: chocolate-covered cherries. For some reason, he’s obsessed with them and without us even realizing it, gifting him the sweet treats became a tradition right under our noses. He knows what he’s getting each year without me even having to give him the gift. Giving my family their gifts might just be my favorite part of the holiday each year. I try to make or buy more thoughtful gifts for everyone in my family because, sentimentality, is one of the most important values in our home. I think the best gift I ever gave was to my Uncle Charlie; I made him a collage of our pictures together with a note saying just how important to me that he was. It made him cry, which of course made me cry too.

The holiday here has felt a little different as of late though. In my freshman year of college, my uncle passed away from cancer. For the last few Christmas holidays I got to have with him, I would make homemade raspberry turnovers. He always said that they were his favorite treat. Unfortunately, after he passed, I couldn’t find it in me to make them for our first holiday season without him. However, I plan on making it a tradition to have them at every holiday get-together we have in order to keep him with us in spirit.

It's no secret that as you get older things in your life begin to change. Since coming to college, the holidays feel different. I drown myself in work during finals week and then go home for a month to celebrate the holidays with my family. We jump from house to house, with plans of gift giving and receiving, breakfast, lunch and dinner plans set up well in advance, and the goal of spreading Christmas joy. Something I have found myself cherishing about Christmas as a college student is making new traditions with my friends and roommates here at the Mount. Since freshman year, we always have a night where we do something fun and holiday themed. Freshman year my roommate and I got matching pajamas, made gingerbread houses, and played games like Uno and Exploding Kittens on the floor of our dorm. Last year, since there were four of us instead of two, we exchanged gifts for ‘secret Santa’ and played games while wearing light-up reindeer antler headbands. This year, we are exchanging gifts again and having a hot chocolate bar to make fancy hot chocolates for one another while watching holiday movies!

This Christmas, I was offered the opportunity to spend the holidays in Switzerland with my boyfriend and his family. Talk about a Christmas present! I’ve never been out of the country before, in fact, I just recently (last month) got my passport. I’ve been grappling with the decision on going or staying with my family in Delaware. I have always spent the holidays with my family—we have our traditions and I’m not sure that I’m ready to part from them just yet.

But that’s a part of growing up. Our traditions change over the years, our families grow as we get into relationships, have kids, and go off on our own as adults. Changing traditions doesn’t change the love we have for our families, nor does it mean that we’re giving up on what we grew up with. Instead, it means that we’re in a position to make new traditions with our bonus family members and spread our traditions amongst new people. Personally, I’m looking forward to everyone knowing the Owen family traditions and keeping them alive.