Christmas Traditions

Every family has their own Christmas Traditions, whether they realize it or not. And within each family, different people think different things are traditions. Let me explain. Adults and children see things through different eyes. What an adult may see as a tradition, the child completely overlooks and zeros in on a smaller detail.

Example:
Adult’s Tradition: Go to Mimi’s for Christmas, spend time with the family, open gifts, and generally enjoy the holiday.

Child’s Tradition: Go to Mimi’s for Christmas, eat in the garage, wait for Santa to come for a visit and freak out the little kids; Cousins tease each other and eventually gang up on one another in some evil, twisted plot to annoy one another.

Since Husband and I got married, our holidays have been spent traveling to and fro to one set of parents or the other, so it has been difficult to begin our own Christmas Traditions. One thing that we have begun to do every year is watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I also find time to watch A Christmas Story each year, as it is the quintessential Christmas movie. The main thing for us is not to begin traditions that revolve around a place or a thing, but something we do together. If we can fulfill our traditions anywhere we are, it is truly a tradition that we can continue our entire lives, if we so choose.

I’m sure that one of these days when we have kids some of our traditions will change, as they should. I think every family should have some fun traditions that involve everyone spending time together. When I was a kid, we used to make cookies and candy until we were sick of looking at it, much less eating it. Mom was continually fussing about the consistency of the spritz cookie dough or the divinity. My arm would feel like it was going to fall off from making perfect little green trees with the cookie press. But it was fun. And I still miss green spritz cookies.

Holidays have become so commercial that sometimes we forget to stop and think about why we really have them. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ…not to see who can have the best lawn decorations or to go into debt trying to impress people with our gift-giving skills. Even Santa has to take a backseat to the baby Jesus. (I know some of you may be gasping right now…just breathe, you’ll be fine.) We never “believed” in Santa because Mom and Dad thought it so very important that we fully understood the true meaning of Christmas. We probably ruined Santa for a few of the cousins, but it was bound to happen. I’m sure there’s a happy medium in there somewhere, but then again, our family has never been about “happy mediums.”

So think about Christmas in a different way this year – start your own traditions and don’t forget to wish Jesus a Happy Birthday.