As\nI sit down to write this column, I am preparing for the annual Holiday Open\nHouse at the president\u2019s residence and the tree lighting ceremony this evening.\nThe month of December will fly by between semester-end traditions, including\nin-person commencement, service awards, and of course, the busy-ness and joy of\nthe approaching holiday. I love all of it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\nseason always evokes so many sweet memories for me, deep gratitude for all of\nthe love that surrounds me, and the happiness stemming from the extra\nopportunities to focus on acts of kindness in the spirit of the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweet memories for me begin with traditional holiday food \u2013 especially the sweets. My mom and sister usually set a baking date. By the end of the day, they will have baked about 250 cookies. They are carefully packaged up for neighbors, co-workers, the mail carrier, and for the local shelter. There are still more cookies left to be eaten. My favorites are butterscotch oatmeal and frosted sugar cookies. My dad loves to frost the cutout cookies, and I appreciate his artwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband Bill\u2019s family makes the most delicious pound cakes. His grandfather was a Methodist bishop, and I think his grandmother baked a cake for the entire congregation. At her house, there would be countless pound cakes, carefully wrapped, lining the stairs to the second floor. The love she poured into each pound cake was abundant. I miss her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When\nI was young, my mom always organized a craft day. My brothers and sister and I\nwould gather around the kitchen table and make a paper chain. That chain would\nbe hung on the walls. Each year, the chain would be packed up in a big box,\nstored away, taken out the next year, and added to. It eventually covered every\ndownstairs wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each\nof us was also given a very large, personalized ornament. My mom had painted\neach one with our name on it \u2013 very significant for me as back in the day you\ncould not buy anything with the name \u201cTisa\u201d on it. It was such an honor to hang\nour special ornament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had a lot of Christmas rules. For example, you could never tell what you bought someone. One year, my sister and I decided to break that rule and told one another what we bought. Of course, mom discovered our secret and returned the gifts. Also, there was no peeking, and of course, there were consequences for peaking. On Christmas morning, we were not allowed to go downstairs until our parents were up and ready. I often slept on the stairs just to be a little closer to Santa\u2019s arrival and the magic of Christmas presents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nart of Christmas gift wrapping is also a family tradition. The gift should\nnever look like the actual gift. It is not uncommon for a small gift to be\nwrapped in several larger boxes. One year, my Dad jokingly put on his wish list\n\u201ca whole lot of money\u201d \u2013 so my mom went to the bank and got a lot of one-dollar\nbills, placed them in a box, and fluffed them up to create the illusion of\nbulk. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nwe grew older, new traditions emerged, like the tradition of the Christmas\npickle ornament. On Christmas eve, after everyone has gone to bed, my parents\nplace an ornament shaped like a pickle on one of the Christmas trees. (My mom\nusually has at least three trees.) The first to find the ornament is blessed\nwith a year of good luck and an extra present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll be honest. That tradition gets a bit competitive at our house. One year, I was even disqualified from the competition for getting up early and finding the pickle before everyone had a chance to look. I am still a bit bitter about the disqualification. Even though I did not get the pickle present that year, I believe I was still blessed with a year of good luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When\nmy mom remarried, a new tradition came with my stepdad \u2013 a Christmas Eve open\nhouse. This tradition continues today with neighbors and friends gathering to\neat, drink, and be merry. One year, Bill and I were driving home from Kansas to\nMassachusetts, and we invited two international students, Oliver and Alice, to\njoin us. At the open house, Alice ate her first deviled egg and loved it so\nmuch that she ate a least a dozen all by herself. Every year since, we think of Alice on\nChristmas Eve when my mom puts out the deviled eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\nare so many beautiful memories, music, smells, tastes, warm hugs, and deep\nfriendships surrounding my childhood and adulthood during the Christmas\nholiday. It is a great time to lovingly remember those who are no longer with\nus and cherish those who are \u2013 new friends and old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked some of our international students about their holiday traditions \u2013 whether they were celebrating Christmas, Eid, Ramadan, or another tradition. Every student talked about gathering with family and friends. Friendship, family and a sense of connection are so important to our well-being. So is a sense of generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poet\nEdwin Arlington Robinson said there are two kinds of gratitude: the sudden kind\nwe feel for what we take and the larger kind we feel for what we give. I\ncouldn\u2019t say it better. May your days ahead be filled with large gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I sit down to write this column, I am preparing for the annual Holiday Open House at the president\u2019s residence and the tree lighting… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62565,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62564\/revisions\/62565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}