I am not entirely sure when the tradition started, but the why is pretty clear.
Sometime around age eleven or twelve, when our family was still living in my childhood home in Lynbrook, New York, my mom hatched a quiet plan. My dad always meant well at Christmas. He had great intentions. But every now and then, his gifts for her missed the mark, slightly. So Mom thought that if she sent me along, I could “help” my dad pick things that would land closer to spot on.
That was the beginning of forty-five years of father-daughter Christmas shopping.
How a Practical Idea Became a Tradition
The early years played out exactly as Mom intended. Dad and I would set out together with her quiet coaching in mind, and I served as the unofficial second opinion on whatever he was considering. I am sure we missed a few years over the decades, especially the busy ones after I got married and had my son. There were also seasons when I really did not feel like going. But I went anyway, because by then it was no longer just an errand. It had become ours.
Mom always made our job easier. She would offer suggestions, write lists, and name specific things she really wanted (and a few she really did not). A couple of times, she even went to the store the day before, found exactly what she wanted, tucked it into a special spot in the store, and then told us precisely where to look. 😂
What the Day Looked Like
Our shopping trips varied wildly from year to year.
Some years we spent hours together, sometimes splitting the day into two trips, going from store to store and mostly working our way through the mall. Some years we even ended up at more than one mall. And then occasionally, by some small Christmas miracle, we would find everything we needed in a single store and head home early, feeling like we had pulled off a heist.
Mall shopping always involved food. Most years, we landed at Sbarro in the food court; the pizza we decided was the closest thing Cincinnati offered to the New York-style slice we both missed. It was not actually New York pizza. We knew it was not. But sitting across from each other in a mall food court, eating Sbarro and comparing notes on what we had bought so far, was a kind of homesickness made tolerable by company.
But these Christmas shopping trips were never really only about the shopping and the pizza. They were time. Time for my dad and me to catch up on jobs, on family, on life in general. The truth is, we did not always have the easiest relationship. These trips quietly mended a lot of the mistakes I made when I was a teenager. We never argued on shopping days. The day belonged to family, to good memories, to finding the perfect gift for Mom, and yes, to pizza. It was my way of making up for the grief I gave him when I was younger, and a chance for us to share a secret together at Christmas. We talked about how we hoped Mom’s face would light up when she opened the gifts we had picked. Some years it did. Some years it really did.
Pictures at the mall were almost always taken in front of the giant Christmas tree. Every year I joked that we should finally get our picture taken with Santa. We never did. And starting in 2022, Santa hats became mandatory headwear for the day, no exceptions.
Macy’s was usually one of our key stops, and it always turned into a game. My dad worked for Macy’s for more than twenty years in the call center, so he knew a lot of people, and everyone knew who he was (he was that kinds of guy 😁). We would walk through the store and keep count how many people recognized him and said hi. Quite a few did, year after year. And yes, on extra discount days for employees and their families, we absolutely took advantage of his discount. It would have been wasteful not to.
When the Tradition Had to Change
About a decade ago, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and our shopping rhythm slowly began to shift.
Then COVID hit, and everything changed at once.
I was extremely concerned that my dad would catch the virus, and I wanted to protect him as much as possible. So starting in 2020, the mall years effectively ended. We shopped online from my house. For the last three years of the tradition, we shopped from his, because getting out of the house had become harder for him.
From 2020 forward, I treated every Christmas shopping season as a gift. I never knew which one would be the last. In 2025, I had a feeling. I hoped I was wrong, but I went into the day with a quiet awareness that this might be it. My dad passed away on March 26, 2026. Last December, it turns out, was our final father-daughter Christmas shopping trip.
What I Carry Forward
Looking back at the photographs, all the way back to 2011 and probably further if I dug deeper, I miss my dad so much. Christmas is going to be hard this year. Harder than I am ready for, probably.
But here is what I have learned about traditions while researching genealogy for the last twenty-five years: traditions are not delicate. They survive moves, marriages, illnesses, pandemics, and even loss, because they live in the people who carry them. My great-grandparents brought their Carpatho-Rusyn Christmas customs across an ocean. My grandfather brought some Swedish traditions. My maternal grandparents shared their religious traditions by having us attend church with them [See: Sacred Traditions – The Byzantine Catholic Faith of My Ancestors]. Things shifted, things adapted, but the essential thing always survived.
So this year, I think I will start a new tradition. I will ask my son if he wants to go Christmas shopping with me. We will hunt for gifts for the people we love. We will find lunch somewhere good. Maybe we will wear Santa hats. And hopefully we will talk about things that matter to us, things that will keep our relationship strong. And maybe, in some small way, my dad will be there too, in every spot-on gift we manage to choose together.
That is how traditions actually pass down. Not in a single ceremonial handoff, but in someone deciding to keep the warmth going.
Your Turn
Is there a holiday tradition in your family that started with one specific person, and someone else carried it forward? I would love to hear about it in the comments below. Tell me who started it, what it looked like, and whether it is still going.
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