My sister-in-law has been trying to reach me. I haven’t been able to carve time out to talk to her until today. It’s been about a month! I usually feel good by the end of our conversation, and today was no exception. We were planning two get-together s. One a weekend during which the guys were going to work together on my hubster’s truck, and the other, Thanksgiving. My brother-in-law has a welding machine at home so while the boys are working/playing, my sister and I will be having out own fun. We talked about going to the city zoo with her sweet little foster child, baking Christmas cookies, o
r doing crafts.
I can’t wait.
We live four hours apart – far enough to be unable to get our busy schedules together frequently. We have always wished that we lived closer so that the kids could spend more time together. And make traditions.
Do you have any holiday traditions? Over all my years of parenting I have thought about the importance of tradition and worried that I didn’t create enough. I’m going to list a few of the ones that we’ve instituted at our house over the years:
- First Snow that Stays on the Ground: White Meal (everything white: chicken, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, white cake, etc)
- First Day of Spring: Pastel foods
- St Patrick’s Day: Green Meal
- Easter: Easter Baskets left outside for the Bunny to find. Bunny flies in on a helicopter and fills the baskets, and we discover them upon hearing the helicopter fly away. Yes, a Helicopter.
- Fourth of July: Taco Bell Meal eaten on the side of the road for the Hershey Park Fireworks. “Side of the road” sounds weird, and it is, but its the thing. And we lay on blanket and play board games all evening until the Fireworks go off.
- Thanksgiving – when my brother-in-law, his wife and two kids share this holiday with us (whether in their state or ours) we have a tradition of having a gingerbread decorating contest. We have the kids split up into 2 teams and each decorate a house. We still do this even though they are adults (ages 18 – 26).
- Christmas Morning: the kids wake us up and once we finally get done with our showers, they can open their stockings. Once they’ve opened them, we sit for breakfast/brunch. When that is finally over we begin to open our presents. We start by giving the youngest her first gift, and then one at a time each person goes in turn to open one single present. Once everyone has take a turn to open a gift, and we have all ooh’d and ah’d every time one was unwrapped, we start doing it again… and this can take all day! When they were little they weren’t allowed to wake us up so they would sing from their hallway until we heard them singing and came out.
- Christmas Eve: Christmas Eve church service and evenings at Gramma Rogers
- Sock-mas. I started this one last year, 2014.
I’m going to start some more but I’ll have to see how to fit them in now that everyone is either away at college or moving out completely. I’d love to know what traditions others do to unite their family!
