Mouse over the picture to shake things up! Html trick here.
Left to right: mine, E's, R's.
Traditions are a part of the holidays, a wonderful part, and the expectations that come with them are, of course, an inherent part of traditions, and maybe that's where some troubles around the holidays begin. Trying to pull off all the holiday expectations traditions, trying to remember and get to all the little details that are part of some of those traditions can lead to inordinate amounts of stress, at least for me, that is.
On the other hand, when I look back, the typical holidays where we did the same thing year after year all blur together into one. It is the years where traditions weren't followed that stand out from all the rest:
1. The year that my parents "couldn't find our stockings" to hang up on Christmas Eve, and then Santa brought us each a bean bag chair, leaving our presents on top of them.
2. The year that my uncle stopped by early Christmas morning and gave us an intricate jigsaw puzzle, telling us that if we could finish putting it together before he returned for Christmas dinner that evening, he'd give us each $20! We spent the entire day not playing with our new toys, but hunched over a table in the basement doing the puzzle, and we finished JUST in time to earn our prize.
3. The year when I was in my late teens and my oldest brother was in his early twenties. We were tired of never getting a White Christmas in Seattle so we drove an hour away up in to the mountains, filled the trunk of my dad's big American car with trash bags of snow, brought it home, and made a snowman on the front lawn.
4. My first year away from home at Christmas, determined to by free, single, and independent, celebrating with new friends and roommates, several states away from home. A couple of weeks before Christmas I met this guy with an honest and straightforward look in his eyes. We both had Christmas Day off of work and made plans to go cross country skiing that day along the edge of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Due to a silly misunderstanding, it didn't happen. I went anyways with a co-worker of mine. Our first date should have been Christmas Day. Instead, it didn't happen until a couple of weeks later in January when we did laundry and played Gin Rummy together. Here we are, fifteen years later!
5. The first year we chose not to travel to be with our parents, to stay at home and have Christmas in our own house, with our own children, our own family, with our own new mix of old and new traditions.
6. Of course, there are also the holidays that stand out, marked with the sadness of funerals and people who aren't there with us that year. They become a part of our holiday remembrances as well.
Already, in the few years we've had our own holidays here with our kids, I feel like I've set my self up by doing the same things each and every year, setting the kids up for potential disappointment, setting myself up for trying to pull too much off and getting worn out and cranky. So, rather than worry about getting all the details of all the traditions "right" this year, I'm trying to not worry about it too much. Regardless, yes, a lot will be the same this year as other years.
Maybe we need to shake things up a little each year. What will THIS Christmas be remembered for? Probably not for the things that we didn't do or have, the things we didn't get to, but for the things that we did differently.
Maybe this will be the year that we'll remember, not because of of the cookies we can't bake at our own house due to a broken oven, but for the cookies we'll bake after the oven is fixed or else at somebody else's house, or maybe the new treats we figure out how to make in a pan on top of of the stove. We probably (hopefully) won't remember this as the year we didn't get Panda licorice ropes in our stockings (because they couldn't be found in the stores), but rather as the year we did get big Hammond's candy canes instead (because I could find those).
Maybe we'll remember this as the year we shook things up a little and made snowglobes out of thrifted and found things, the little bit of Sculpey clay we had on hand, a few jars, some glitter, paint, water, rocks, glue, and our imaginations (not that there weren't plenty of little details involved in pulling these off!).
What holidays do you remember as being a little different? What will you say when, looking back on this year's holiday season, you find yourself saying, "Remember the year when.....?"
What are your favorite, non-baked, holiday goodies? The oven won't be fixed (under warranty!) until after the first of the year. So much for those cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Oh well. Maybe next year, right?
