The tradition for Christmas in my family has always been the same:
-Gather at Grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, eat, exchange gifts, take every opportunity to make fun of the cousins and laugh at each other’s expense until our sides hurt.
-Look to the sky for Rudolph’s nose on the drive home.
-Go to bed without a fuss.
-Wake up to Santa’s gifts Christmas morning.
For my husband, it was always the same each year for his family:
-Well, I wasn’t there; you’d have to ask him what the ritual looked like.
But times have changed.
Grandmother now lives in a retirement home… The cousins have all grown up and moved away… And we all have families of our own.
This year, we decided to spend our Christmas at home in Florida. As much as we love to see extended family and try to carry on old family traditions, I always struggle each year with the realization that my children do not really have any Christmas traditions of their own. So, for the SECOND Christmas EVER, my kids went to sleep in their own beds on Christmas Eve, woke to Santa’s gifts in their own living room on Christmas morning, and ate a traditional Christmas meal (minus the ham or turkey, I don’t ‘do’ land animals ~ but that’s an entirely separate blog) gathered ’round their own dining table. We read Christmas books, watched classic Christmas movies, and just enjoyed the holiday together. It was absolutely wonderful!
Next year, we’ll almost certainly be in a different home in a different state (God bless the USAF), but we’ll do our best to develop traditions that they will look back on fondly when they are adults… and perhaps they’ll face the same struggles when THEY have children.
