'Enjoy every minute spent with the ones we love': Onslow residents share Christmas traditions
The Christmas season might bring about gifts, parties and Santa Claus, but family traditions are often what makes the holiday so special.
Onslow County residents celebrate all different kinds of traditions, from classic Christmas festivities to unique generational-family activities. Richlands resident Angel Webster Pitts likes the classics, as her family loves to ride around looking at Christmas lights.
"We try to have hot chocolate of some sort on Christmas Eve, with a finger food-type dinner and watch Christmas movies or listen to Christmas music," Pitts said. "We live in Richlands city limits, but we travel from Wilmington to Emerald Isle/Wallace, and the Kenansville-area during the season, hitting up local bakeries and shops to lend our support. Not super exciting but we like it."
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Richlands resident LS Melanie loves the Christmas classics too but adds her own twist to the holiday.
Not only does her family watch holiday movies like It's a Great Christmas Charlie Brown, bake cookies, make gingerbread houses and drive around looking at holiday lights, but her favorite tradition is to make her family's famous Coquito Spanish eggnog.
Other residents like Beulaville's Mel Plankenhorn spend their holidays making others smile. Plankenhorn and her family ride around as Jeep Santa and Mrs. Jeep Claus.
Richlands resident Anita Selby also works hard to make others' holiday special, setting up her winter village in her garage so folks can enjoy it.
Others, like Onslow County resident Matthew Reeves, do things a little different.
"We start around 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve," Reeves said. "Every hour we’ll open a present, while watching a Christmas movie, making cookies and playing board/card games until midnight. If there’s any presents left, they get opened and then we go to bed and sleep in. No 6 a.m. screams of “It's Christmas! Can we open presents now?"
But for many Onslow County residents, Christmas is all about generational family traditions, carried on for decades.
Resident Contessa Jones has cooked stuffed shells on Christmas Eve with her Papa Doug for over 30 years.
"We have running jokes about how many years it takes to become a master chef of cooking the shells," Jones said. "Several of the kids and grandkids have now 'almost' passed his cooking course. A Maxwell family tradition."
Onslow County resident Laura Marshburn also understands the importance of carrying on family traditions. She said growing up, she always got together at her mother's house on five-mile on Christmas Eve for chicken, pizza and a white elephant game.
Although her mother has since gone to heaven, she said they still continue with the tradition.
Resident Laura MacNeil also has pizza on Christmas Eve.
"We always eat cheap frozen pizzas, go look at Christmas lights and have hot chocolate while I read “The Night Before Christmas," MacNeil said. "Open one gift, then bedtime. Birthday cake for Jesus and singing Happy Birthday. Variations of the same traditions carried on to my grandkids now."
Resident Julie Brown grew up helping her mom bake and assemble Christmas cookie trays with cookies, brownies and fudge. They would then deliver them to friends and family.
Brown said sometimes they would be 40-deep in trays. She still makes boxes of cookies to this day to hand out to customers and friends.
Onslow County resident Tiffany Turner really appreciates the meaning of family at Christmas. She said she, her husband and their two kids aged 16 and 20 always watch classic Christmas movies together.
When it's time to put up the Christmas tree, Turner said they turn on Christmas music and bake cookies while decorating, a tradition they've done since her oldest was just two years old.
Turner holds one tradition in particular close to her heart, though, something she's done for the 41 years she's been alive.
She said she goes to her grandma's house to eat with her mother, siblings and their families. She said she's blessed to still have her 89-year-old grandma with her.
"She also makes her famous sour cream coconut cake every year," Turner said. "She only makes it at Christmas, and I believe that’s why it’s so special to us. These few traditions, I hold dear to my heart. One day, things will have to change by no choice of our own so, for now, we will continue these traditions and enjoy every minute spent with the ones we love."
Onslow County resident Sylvia Stringfellow-Mashaw also carries on a long-time tradition from her family.
Her son Nik, his fiancée and his fiancée's mother join her in opening one present on Christmas Eve. Then, come Christmas morning, they gather in the living room and let their pets open gifts first, before opening their own.
"We have breakfast and throughout the day, we cook and have so much fun," Stringfellow-Mashaw said. "We are from New Jersey and moved down here in 2015. I grew up military, mostly Germany, where we celebrated with my mama's family in Regensburg. I got married in 1973 and continued the tradition."
Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@jdnews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily News: Onslow County residents share Christmas traditions, some carried for decades
