KK’s My Favorite Tradition

Ask either of my kids or  Judy’s or Barbara’s kids about KK’s and they’ll tell you it’s one of their favorite traditions along with all their parents. 

KK stands for Kris Kringle – like you didn’t already know that!  We started doing this in 1981 and continued for about 12 years.

 

 

Around the first of December we would have a kick off party to draw names and for the entire month sneak around from house to house and leave little treats for our KK’s.  Sometimes it would be at our house

 or Judy and Brian’s house

Or Barbara and T’s house   

We all lived within a mile of each other and the mailboxes at night would be a busy place.  We’d slowly drive up the street…lights off put a little treat in the mailbox

 

and peel out with maybe a honk of the horn or just rush home and call them up, voice disguised and whisper “K K.” (This was way before caller ID and cell phones!)  If you happened to receive the call you’d rush to the mailbox and hopefully your name would be on the little treat!  

    

We were soooo sneaky and the kids thought it was great fun to try to catch your KK.  One Friday night the boys went undercover on the roof of the house and waited for hours to see if a car would drive up!  I even got an ice cream sundae one night! 

 

This went on until a couple days before Christmas when we would have our big “Reveal” KK party.  Everyone hammed it up then, too.  Slowly walk around the room, maybe hand your “final” gift to someone and quickly grab it back until finally you presented your big final gift to your KK.

 Of course it was never about the gift…it was about the fun! Heaven forbid the ribbing you’d get if you’d been a lousy KK!   I love our pictures from those years.  Two babies were born…the kids went from little to high school, puppies became old dogs.  That was before Brian died  and the kids grew up and we all moved apart.

Judy moved to Corpus, Barbara was still in McAllen and we had moved to Austin .  It’s not that we don’t see each other…(we all live in Central Texas now) but every five years or so we have a reunion weekend…dedicated to KK’s. I’ve put the pictures somewhere safe…so safe I can’t find them!!! but here we are…first generation KKs.

  

Now it’s the grandkids who love to do KK’s. We do a stocking for each person – If there are 10 girls each girl brings 10 things for the girls stocking – same for the guys and same for the kids. I think we had around 30 stockings that were filled to the brim!  It’s different from what we originally did but we just kind of honor those magical years. We look at our old pictures and remember.  So my favorite tradition hands down…KK’s!  Thanks for the memories KKs! 

And thank you Beverly for the opportunity to share my story.

xoxo Your secret KK….Nancy

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