Christmas means family: family recipes, family traditions, family heirlooms and especially family stories.
In “ All American Christmas ” (Fox Books), out now, 23 Fox News …
Christmas means family: family recipes, family traditions, family heirlooms and especially family stories. In “ All American Christmas ” (Fox Books), out now,23 Fox News personalities welcome readers into their Christmas celebrations. From baking to tree-trimming to lighting the candles of the household Advent wreath, they describe their most treasured seasonal rituals. Here, contributors share the childhood Christmas memories that remain vivid decades later — and a few that their families will never let them forget. SILENT FRIGHT Christmas Eve mass at Bret Baier’s neighborhood Catholic church was a holiday highlight, and serving as an altar boy made the night even more special. “I really got into being up front and part of the sacrament,” the anchor writes. One year, the parish priests organized a particularly elaborate procession to kick off the midnight vigil. Twenty altar boys in black cassocks and white hooded surplices led the solemn march up the darkened center aisle. Each boy held a tall lighted candle. With their hoods up over their heads, they resembled a line of miniature medieval monks. “The next thing I knew I was on the floor looking up at faces that gradually came into focus,” Baier remembers. “I’d been carrying the candle too close to my body. The heat and smoke from the candle’s flame got trapped in my hood.” He had collapsed on the altar, in view of the entire horrified congregation. “Not the typical surprise you want to provide for your family and your faith community,” he admits. SANTA SHUTOUT Brian Kilmeade’s brothers still tease him about “the door-was-open Christmas.” Late one Christmas Eve, the “Fox & Friends” host recalls, the three boys sneaked out of bed to peek at the tree standing in their Massapequa, NY, living room. Sure enough, a pile of gifts was waiting. “All of a sudden we heard banging noises. We figured it had to be Santa,” he remembers. As they scampered back to their shared bedroom, Kilmeade noticed the front door standing open. He did the only responsible thing: he closed and locked it. “The door being open had nothing to do with Santa,” he reasoned. “We had a chimney. Santa doesn’t do doors.” Actually, the boys had interrupted their dad, James — coming off the late shift at the bar he managed — in the process of ferrying all their gifts into the house from their hiding place in his car. James spent hours shivering outside, vainly trying to wake his wife without alerting the kids to his predicament. (A handful of pebbles tossed at her bedroom window finally did the trick.
