Our first holiday season of married life brought about a lot
of discussion: how are we going to celebrate the holidays? It’s a scary discussion for some, especially
when family traditions run deep and pressure from both sides of the family can
weigh in as you’re trying to decide what to do.
Ultimately, we just had to recognize that the holidays from both our
viewpoints were going to look different---and that was okay---because we were
married now. Not only was it important
for us to incorporate traditions and celebrations with both of our families…but
we decided that very first year that it was really important to start our OWN
traditions as well.
I stumbled across this blog post last week and really
enjoyed it—namely the idea of deciding what to keep, toss & modify in terms
of traditions you bring into marriage. I
also really enjoyed the idea of being flexible.
In my family, my sister is a nurse and that has meant moving Christmas
(more than once) to New Years or the weekend.
Or there have been the years where my mom has had to work Christmas eve
and/or Christmas day and we’ve had to adjust the schedule. I
married into a family with a bunch of pastors…which generally means their days
off are not the same as ours. And lastly, I’m married to a husband who works a job
where the time off allotted for vacation is pretty minimal…and we tend to have
babies and eat up all of our vacation time.
So, we adjust and enjoy. The things
I adored about the holiday season (Black Friday shopping, midnight mass with my
family after presents on Christmas eve, etc..) have changed as we’ve gotten
married and had children of our own.
So what are our traditions?
Well, I only eat my mom’s stuffing on Thanksgiving (I’ve tried others, I
just can’t do it.) I shop Black Friday. We wrap Christmas-themed books to open
every night in December. I watch “The
Family Stone” & “The Family Man” at least a dozen times through the month.
We drive around and look at Christmas lights nearly every night. Everyone gets
a new movie in their stocking. An elf
visits us every night and this year, we’re reading the Jesus Storybook Bible
Christmas reading plan and cutting chains off our countdown.
Even with all the adjusting of schedules and changing things
up a bit each year, we still want our kids to be able to count on traditions in
our own family. We may see our cousins
on a different day each year, but it’s important that our kids have time they
can count on to celebrate as a family. We
carved out time on Christmas morning/day our first year of marriage just my
husband and I….and it was such a sweet time of celebration together. We’ve continued this time and each year we
both find ourselves looking forward to it: “what should we have for
breakfast/brunch?” “what new movie do
you think the kids will want to watch?”
It’s relaxed. It’s
enjoyable. It’s a special time as a
family. There is no rush to be anywhere
or hurry through our own family celebration to make it to the next
gathering. It’s simply delightful.
We got married. And
through that, we kept some traditions, dropped some & modified others. And now we’re our own family…and that means
drafting even more special traditions.
