Countdown to Christmas 2025….Day 10
I believe at one point in my adult life, I grumbled to myself some not so Christmasy thoughts as the calendar filled up for all of our grown and flown children and Christmas as we knew it took a new tangent I was not prepared for.
As I recollect, I muttered something about traditions being dumb because by nature they should be repeated every single year until Jesus comes back. Hence the name “traditions.” And yet, they seemed to be made of fairy dust and were very hard to nail down in real time anymore.
For us, if a “tradition” had a two to three year run, it got good mileage.
I sometimes have to turn away when a conversation amongst friends turns to “Oh our family ALWAYS….” fill in the blank.
The only thing for certain up to this point for us is, we will open gifts and stockings somewhere with someone, even if it’s just Russ and me.
My throat catches knowing that even that has a time limit on it.
How we exchange, where we exchange, who is on the guest list, what food accompanies the event…this is all a roll of the dice each year.
During Covid, we met up with Jack and Sarah at Forest Park on a cold day between Christmas and New Year. I brought their gifts in a laundry basket and we social distanced as we opened up each other’s offerings.
We have had kids traveling to other countries, not coming home because flights are difficult to work around, well…work. Like many of you, we share our family with their other side now and the schedule flexes according to the plans of those who also love our children and want to spend the time with them.
We have had Chinese takeout for our Christmas dinner when that was what was requested/suggested.
We have switched our “traditional” Christmas morning breakfast menu to meet dietary needs and preferences of others.
The cookie baking I grew up dreaming about is now often just a bag mix of sugar cookies or gingerbread people mixed up after school and iced before bed on a blessed free day from sports when we are with the little ones.
Which now doesn’t look like it will happen at all, thanks to the fact that someone decided to enter high school this year.
Whatever.
We don’t have special wrap for each person, there is no unique item that shows up in the stockings every year, the matching Christmas jammies have been replaced by a cocoa bar that gets replenished weekly on the counter at the grands’ house.
And yes. Jesus is the reason for the season and none of the beauty of that changes.
However; there is a part of me that feels like we missed the boat on maintaining some kind of “Our family always…..” story.
But we have had some fun things that we thought would become a repeat. Sadly, each ended up being one and done or short lived.
Perhaps they hold special memories for that very reason.
Perhaps if we had done them every year, they would have become a box to check.
Instead, my photo library and memory bank are full of experiences we have shared with some and all of our family over the years.
So for the next few days, I want to share some of my favorites.
Who am I kidding?
They are all my favorites.
But hopefully you will enjoy the pictures and stories and maybe get some ideas for your own holiday fun.
If you managed to maintain and sustain a tradition, good on you. I confess I am a bit envious and I would love to hear your story…even if I do sigh, just a tad bit heavily. Pay no mind to that and tell me.
If you are like me and have waved farewell to a tradition or flexed it to fit, tweaked it to make it work in your new normal or couldn’t care a bit about them…I would love to hear your story too!
Hope you are enjoying new and old parts of what make the holidays fun and special for you and yours <3