Smudge Ink Holiday Traditions

Season's Greetings from Smudge Ink! We’re celebrating the holidays by sharing our staff’s special festive traditions. We’re also revealing a few of our favorite memories, food, drinks and songs. We wish you a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year! [This picture taken last Thursday where we spent most of the morning decorating the auditorium at the Boys + Girls Club of Charlestown for their annual holiday party.]

Kate: Our annual Light Ride. Every year we hop in the car with the kids and a thermos of hot chocolate. We drive around the area admiring all the Christmas lights. [Also] Mimosas on Christmas morning.

Deb: Christmas pajamas from my mother-in-law on Christmas Eve… Fun especially now that my girls get them too!

Emily: Setting up my grandmother’s little light-up Christmas tree from the 1950s. 

Clayton: Stealing candy cane cookies from Vava’s (Grandma’s) Tupperware (unofficial tradition). Silver bells every Christmas. Opening stockings on Christmas Eve. 

Margaret: Charlie Brown Xmas album and soul Christmas album. Cooking food all day with family.

Meaghan: We always open one gift on Christmas Eve (usually the best one). Pickle in the tree! I always win.

Alyssa: Jazzy Christmas album and going on a family ski day on the 26th. 

Sarah: My family celebrates Christmas Eve, per my father’s German family tradition. For as long as I can remember, we had real candles on the tree, but now that I have a young nephew and niece we have to use lights. 

Sabrina:Every Christmas my brother teaches us a new game. It’s usually something my family has never played. Some of us are a little slower than others to pick it up but eventually it becomes a tireless competition during the entire time we are back home.

Kate: Charades with family and close friends on Christmas Eve

Deb: First Christmas as parents!

Meaghan: I was too hot next to the fire so I put a pillow in front of it. It burst into flames; I was like, 6? We threw it out LAST YEAR. We kept a burnt pillow.

Margaret: When my family ditched out and went to the Caribbean.

Clayton: Getting a Mr. Potato Head

Alyssa: When my brothers and I got a Nintendo 64. No other Christmas present has come close to causing that much excitement and screaming. 

    

Meaghan: I make a MEAN pomegranate martini. We made like a million raviolis a few years ago, so good. Bless my Italian grandma. 

Margaret: “Killer Bees” at Sunshine’s on the beach in Nevis (see best holiday).

Clayton: Grandma’s ravioli, mulled cider and Martinellis. 

Margaret: Best & Worst – Christmas Time in the LBC – Snoop Dogg

Clayton: Best - SO MANY! But Bing Crosby’s White Christmas is a topper. Worst - Is there a worst?

Alyssa: Best - Louis Armstrong’s “‘Zat You, Santa Claus?” is simultaneously creepy and catchy.