When I started the tradition of going to friends' houses on Christmas Eve with my children, I don't think I put it together that my mom had always done that too. She'd bake all these awesome things and, on Christmas Eve make doughnuts. She'd arrange plates of her treats (which include handmade chocolates) and we'd hold these treasures steady in the backseat. We went to widows, old bachelors, disabled people, and a couple of just good friends. But mostly, she took her bounty to people who could not make these foods themselves. She could talk to anyone about anything and seemed completely at ease chatting with these folks as she brought them Christmas plates.
I started it with my kids one year when were we so poor that we only had gifts for the kids because the grandparents had sent some. I'd had a baby in the fall and had to give up my day-care, so money was extra tight. I had been moping around feeling sorry for myself because we had no money for Christmas when I had an epiphany like the Grinch: It isn't about tinklers, packages and bows!! So I organized the children and we baked cookies on Christmas Eve, they decorated them (and they looked like the work of a 3 and 2 year old) and when Dad got home our plan was to take these to friends' houses and sing to them. It used up the whole day and kept us very busy and was very satisfying and wonderful. And our friends loved it, too.
It was a good way to spend the loooong hours of Christmas Eve day in the ensuing years and we've done it ever since. Our children carried on the tradition when they went to college and on missions, and now as adults with their own homes they still bake and sing for Christmas. Multi-generational traditions are fabulous.
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