As we often do on Christmas, the editorial board of The Spokesman-Review takes leave of punditry today to share a few personal reflections.

Rebecca Nappi, associate editor: We call it our very ‘90s Christmas, because the tradition began in the early 1990s. We did it for the two children, though they weren’t children anymore, but young adults who had experienced tragedy early on. Their older sister died of cancer at 16. A year later, their parents split. And then a couple of years after all that, their dad married me and soon their mom remarried, too.

The “children” thought the tradition was weird. Their mom and their dad, and their mom’s husband, and their dad’s wife, all together on Christmas Day? Whoa.

In the first years, they ate quickly, sped through present opening and skedaddled. We adults took winter walks together and hoped the very ‘90s tradition would erase any awkwardness and make things more comfortable when it really mattered. When the marriages happen, when the grandbabies arrive.

We are not extraordinary people, any one of us, but together we accomplished an out-of-the-ordinary task. We put aside the past to focus on the future. We made Christmas easy on the kids. They didn’t have to drive to Mom’s, then to Dad’s. They didn’t have to choose. As the years passed, their skedaddling stopped.

This year, the son married, and no awkwardness existed among us at the wedding. The in-laws lost through the divorce reunited at the wedding. They had missed one another so.

A week ago, we sat together in a Sacred Heart Medical Center waiting room. We sipped coffee, shared anxiety. Our very ‘90s Christmas prepared the way for the sacred moment when we were finally summoned into the room. There, we hugged, cried a little, and together welcomed Asa, the first grandchild, into our lives. Asa, his name means healer.

Stacey Cowles, publisher: A white Christmas, downtown bustling as if The Crescent were open again, the Christmas Fund near its goal, the seasonal rituals wrapped up; a few days off to sit by the fire, visit friends, go enjoy the snow with my family, and a few minutes to be grateful for the all the positive things that occurred during the year.

That’s my recipe for stress relief after another year of both ups and downs.

Best wishes for at least a few minutes of hope and peace at your house during this holiday season!

Gary Crooks, associate editor: By the time you read this, our family will be back in shivering Spokane opening presents. But at the moment we’re in Arizona, and it’s been difficult to sit down and write this holiday greeting.

The soothing warmth and relentless sunshine are a bit of a distraction. The relatives provide unintended comic relief as they complain of temperatures that dip into the 40s overnight.

The malls are jammed. Malls so big they would easily devour Northtown. So, that’s one sign that it is, indeed, Christmas. Plus, there are the festive handmade decorations expertly arrayed around Grampy’s yard that cause passers-by to stop, gawk and leave appreciative notes.

On Christmas Eve, 21 relatives will gather to light luminarias, gorge on a feast and exchange presents. We wish it were 22.

Like always, it will be noisy and chaotic, and we’ll love it. It’s a wonderful tradition introduced to me by my wife. And a bittersweet reminder of how much we miss her.

Lynn Swanbom, copy editor and letters coordinator: I’ve been listening to the radio station that plays nothing but holiday music for several weeks before Christmas Day. It was on in my apartment as I baked Christmas treats; it was on in my car as I drove to the gym in the wee hours and home from various holiday events that made me wish I had driven to the gym more often. I actually learned many of the words to songs for which I previously knew only the first and last lines.

That’s what this year has been like. Lots of blanks have been filled just by being in Spokane for my first full year. There are several verses in those songs I still haven’t mastered, but I’ve never yet regretted joining the Spokane community. Being with you through the figure skating championships, city elections, the opening of the Fox and several breathtaking symphony concerts has been the adventure of my life.

And the best is yet to come. Not least among the blessings this year brought me was a return to the editorial page staff after the unsettling downsizing and reorganization that changed this newspaper forever. This year we’ll be adapting to changing media demands, but the First Amendment hasn’t gone away, and free speech is still the driving force behind what we do.

To my valued letter readers and writers: Merry Christmas. I’ve enjoyed working with you, and I hope to hear from you and yours throughout the new year.

Doug Floyd, editorial page editor: Might as well just accept it. It’s all about family.

Might as well concede that the internal – infernal? – journalist that keeps whispering that I should “Come up with something fresh” for this year’s comment is no match for a house full of kids, kids-in-law and grandkids that crowd any creative thoughts from my mind.

Sure, I’d like to fill this space with fresh and inspiring words that show the world from a new angle. (Fact is, you have family and festivities of your own, and I’m lucky that your eyes have lingered here at all. Thanks for that.) But in a showdown between original and traditional, the lasting values won’t be denied in a season like this.

Oh, I resisted – kept pressing fingertips against temples as though they could knead an innovative thought out of that doughy cranium. Then Saturday’s snowfall crystallized the prospects of a sledding excursion that was in danger of melting away.

But in the end, the shining blue eyes of a grandma whose lap, arms and attention are filled with laughing little ones, a house where fresh fir scent wrestles with the aroma of roasting turkey, a small mountain of brightly wrapped packages under the glow of colored lights, decades of warm memories stirred by familiar tunes …

Some things will never be clichés.