This month at Shondaland, we’re celebrating once again what the holidays mean to all with our Food, Family, and Traditions series. These snapshots and vignettes from many of our beloved Shondaland stars, pals, and fans festively affirm the importance of communities both big and small coming together to celebrate.
When it comes to holiday traditions in my family, many come to mind.
My parents always made the holidays feel special in our house. I remember the moments when we would come together — after lugging boxes of lights and decorations up from the basement — to turn our everyday home into something more special.
We would hang stockings on the mantel in descending order by age, while also not forgetting a more scraggly-looking one at the end for our dog Sydney. I always liked to pretend that she loved her stocking as much as I did.
My brothers and I would help my mom bake her famous cutout cookies, mixing powdered sugar and milk and vanilla and all sorts of food coloring together to make our own homemade icing, which I always thought was so festive.
Growing up in Ohio, I always thought winter break was a magical time in our home. We would dig igloos in the backyard under the huge mounds of snow we gathered, and then drive down toward the river to find the best sledding hills.
But my favorite moment of the whole season was on Christmas Eve, when my mom’s side of the family would get together for our annual holiday gift exchange. It wasn’t just fun to get to see all my relatives act like little kids opening presents, but it was also a moment for me to contribute something personal and meaningful to our family holidays.
First came the aunts and uncles and a game of white elephant, where it was always a treat to get to watch them uninhibitedly and playfully argue over who would get the pricey bag of roasted nuts, or the massage gift card, or the strange raw-meat selection that my uncle would bring (in the hopes of taking it home for himself, of course).
They would bicker over “house rules” that seemed to change every year at the whim of whoever was hosting, and it always left me and my cousins giggling in excitement because, after weeks of waiting, we knew it would be our turn soon to open some gifts. For all the cousins, a month earlier, on Thanksgiving, we had put our 12 names in a hat and drew out our very own Secret Santa. I was always so excited to find out which one of my cousins would be my Secret Santa, and in my earlier years, I spent a lot of time trying to pick the best present for the cousin I had been assigned. Over time, though, I realized that what really made the holidays special for me was that this was an opportunity for me to make a gift by hand, to make something that had purpose and meaning behind it.
So, what did I do? I knitted! As my knitting skills got better and better over the years, my cousins began to fight over (or at least pretend to fight over) who would get what came to be my yearly Secret Santa gift: a hand-knitted scarf. Not only did I love the simple act of knitting, it felt good that I was able to craft something that would, hopefully, mean something to others in my family. As one of the youngest cousins, it always made me feel so good to know that I could make something that my older cousins could enjoy.
Many of my holiday traditions have changed over the years, as families have grown bigger and farther apart. So now, as I begin to form my own traditions, I always try to remember to make them feel as special and as magical as my family made ours feel when I was a kid. And as for my knitting, it’s still a tradition I keep with me to this day. And when I sit down to knit a new scarf, I think of all the wonderful memories made on Christmases past.
Jake Borelli's easy homemade icing
Mix confectioners’ sugar and milk with a splash of vanilla into a runny paste. Add food coloring to brighten the icing up, and spoon it over the top of your favorite cooled cutout cookies.
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