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Second of all. . . my post for today.
Traditions. Whenever I here that word, Fiddler on the Roof starts singing in my head. . . Traditions, Traditions, Traditions. Traditions are something that I have struggled with since my wedding day. I come from a blended family with very flexible traditions and my husband comes from a family of family gatherings. We tried doing both, but that just became stressful and crazy. We tried doing the every other year, but even still someone always gets their feeling hurt. It can be a huge, overwhelming undertaking. However, once you throw in kids. . . things get even more complicated. EVERYONE wants to see them!
But, I would have to say, despite how frustrating that all the family logistics of holiday celebrations are, they are usually a VERY joyous time and we have a ton of fun! Now, we just struggle with finding time to develop our own family traditions with our own child (and one on the way). We really want to make those memories for our children of our small family celebrations. . . no matter what the holiday is. For example, my husband and I prepare our own Turkey dinner the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Afterwards, we decorate the tree and welcome the Christmas season. We have so much fun!
Christmas tends to me the most chaotic of all the holidays. But, we still manage to be able to claim Christmas morning as our own. The day before, I prepare some sort of bread-y breakfast treat to bake the next morning, and we take the morning and open presents and just hang out as a family before we have to go to the BIG family Christmas. We have so much fun and it will always be my favorite part.
Here are some of our other Christmas traditions:
:: Walk Christmas Tree Lane (this year it is tonight and Dec. 14th)
:: Gingerbread Christmas at the Bridge - Dec. 4th (tomorrow) 10am. . . kids get to decorate gingerbread houses. This is our first year, since Ethan is 2.
:: Small Group Christmas dinner and gift exchange. . . so much fun!
Oh my goodness, I can probably think of others, but I must be getting tired. What are some of your traditions?
Im a tradition-a-holic so we have tons... and are always forming more! We do Advent using Lisa Welchel's The Christmas ADVENTure! GREAT book... and it tells the story of all of our traditions and how they relate to Jesus (such as the tree, star, baking, etc).
ReplyDeleteWe usually go out on Christmas Eve and drive around town to look at lights. FUN! We've done Christmas Tree Lane and Candy Cane Lane (Huntington Blvd) in the past too. We decorate the tree all together. We do crafts, make hot chocolate (with mint, of course :) and bask in the glow of my multi-colored sparkling tree :) We talk about how Santa represents St. Nick... an awesome man who loved Jesus. And we always try to serve... we do Operation Christmas Child boxes (each kid makes one for another child their same gender/age). We also buy animals for World Vision families. And whatever else we can do! This year we will be driving to Tucson to add some family festivities down there. FUN!
I LOVE traditions too. I'm singing that song in my best Tevya voice, Jolie. We have lots of traditions in our family around making holiday foods - pizzelle cookies, pita piatta pastry, homemade raviolis, birthday cake (or trifle) for Jesus with candles and the works. One of my fave *new* traditions is wrapping all our Christmas books and letting my girls open one each night of December before bedtime. Some our old/used, some are new. All are treasured!
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