Discover Walla Walla

I love traditions. Especially when it comes to Christmas. When I was a kid, my sisters and I started one when we got out the sleeping bags and camped out under the Christmas tree in the living room on Christmas Eve. I'd read to them: "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "The Night Before Christmas," and eventually, "Rudolph's Second Christmas" (as is typical with sequels, it's not as good as the first). Then we'd fall asleep in the glow of the multi-coloured Christmas lights, visions of something more akin to French toast than sugar plums dancing in our heads.

As a parent, I have every intention of starting holiday traditions with my own children (my first and only is 16 months old, so she's not quite ready for them yet). They may include attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve, putting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, making and decorating sugar cookies to give to the neighbours, or things I've yet to think of.

Every town has its own traditions as well, and Walla Walla is no exception. For instance, each year at the beginning of December hundreds of locals gather downtown to watch the Christmas tree light up for the first time that season, coupled with a brilliant display of lights and music in the annual Parade of Lights. Walla Walla University in College Place just brought back its age-old tradition of a tree-lighting ceremony, and it includes cookies and hot drinks, as well as Christmas music, all of which makes me giddy with holiday excitement like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning.

Which is only appropriate, seeing as how I still sleep under the Christmas tree with my sisters on Christmas Eve when we're at home.