Holiday Traditions – Christmas Adam
The holidays were always a major production in my neck of the woods. I’m the oldest of five children in an Irish-Italian family, and Christmastime was always a time of dramatics and theatrics. Lots of our celebrating centered around food – a constant rotation of courses: antipasta, appetizers, salads, breads, pasta dishes, chicken cutlet parmigiana, fish of all varieties, ham, and not to mention the oodles upon oodles of desserts. As my siblings and I got older and started to “branch out” so-to-speak, dividing time between our prospective in-laws, our wild extended family, and each other became a very difficult feat. So, we created our own special day; a day that we would set aside for just the siblings and our parents. We called it Christmas Adam, and it’s celebrated on December 23rd (because Adam came before Eve in the traditional sense).
This day became our time together. We did a grab-bag style of gift giving (which was beneficial to the struggling college kids we had grown into), and we didn’t bother with the formalities of a seven-course meal – Chinese food or pizza worked beautifully. The day fast became an exciting and highly anticipated tradition for us.
As adults, now with our own families spread out in the country, Christmas Adam is still a thing. We’re not all together anymore, and long gone are the days of deciding where we’re eating Christmas Eve dinner and where we’re eating Christmas Day dinner. Christmas Adam is no longer a necessity for us as a family, but it’s a day we still recognize and observe. I’ve since passed on the tradition to my daughter, and it has evolved into our “cooking prep day” for the season. The original meaning behind the day has evolved, but we still hold the old observance as a part of our family tradition, and the sentiment will certainly remain as family legend.
**FUN FACT: In The Coal Elf, the coal elves celebrate a holiday they refer to as Adam’s Day! That’s my own little personal nod to my brothers and sisters and to the wonderful times we shared together.
The Coal Elf Chronicles
Book One
Maria DeVivo
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
Date of Publication: October 15, 2024
ISBN: 979-8823204231
ASIN: B0CW1HMWZJ
Number of pages: 260
Word Count: 73k
Tagline: Santa is real, but this isn't your childhood Christmas tale!
Book Description:
Ember Skye is a fed-up teenaged Coal Elf with a big ashy chip on her shoulder. Torn away from her carefree life Aboveground, she was forced into a world of dirt and darkness in the Mines. Now, the coal is starting to take its toll. Plus, being the only girl-elf coal miner at the North Pole is not fun at all!
Maria DeVivo writes horror and dark fantasy for both a YA and adult audience. Each of her series has been Amazon best-sellers and have won multiple awards since 2012. A lover of all things dark and demented, the worlds she creates are fantastical and immersive. Get swept away in the lands of elves, zombies, angels, demons, and witches (but not all in the same place). Maria takes great pleasure in warping the comfort factor in her readers’ minds – just when you think you’ve reached a safe space in her stories, she snaps you back into her twisted reality.
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