What Do You Do For Christmas

Jacob and Ooh Ooh Peterson

Christmas 2007

So this post is about Christmas. It is long and poorly written.

My husband and I are lucky enough to live near family. Both of us come from family's with wonderful Christmas traditions. But what about us? John, Jacob, and I? Where do we start writing our own traditions? Where do we meld our families traditions together? Where do we discard some old traditions that don't work well for our small but growing family? If we start new traditions, discard old ones (from our respective families), are we disrespecting what our parents created for us?

I've really struggled with this internally over the last 9 years. My wonderful husband has not. He has never seen any reason to worry....of course we'll just do the same thing his family did every year....Duh! But he is wonderful, so he'll ALSO do anything I want to do from my family traditions. BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR FAMILY???? I keep asking year after year. Thankfully it has never had to be a point of contention, because we didn't have children. We just flew from wherever it was that we lived at the time, to visit his family or mine, and did whatever was happening. We were the flexible kids in each family.....with out kids ourselves. So, in the back of my mind was the ever present quandary...."what about our family?" John, well as most men, he compartmentalized and never needed to think about it since it wasn't a "real" problem yet. TIL THIS YEAR.

This year has been different for us. Our son has made our life REAL. He has made our future, that we've been planning for for 9 years, actually our reality. We see how our moods, actions, emotions affect him. So, we have developed some "traditions." Such as prayers before Jacob's bedtime, specific songs for bedtime, superman flying games, and family group hugs.

Now back to Christmas. This year John has seriously started talking about what our family is going to do.....yes! OUR FAMILY! Me, Him, Jacob....and any future wild things. So, if you know me at all, or have read anything on this blog before, you know our focus has been to become self reliant. We've had some obstacles, set backs, and learning experiences, but we are really committed. We want to be debt free. Our schooling cost us a lot of $$$$$ (and it was the only way to enter this profession. I'm not saying we regret it.) and we want to pay it all back as fast as possible. So, our ideas about traditions are starting to emerge. The run along the lines of: Home made gifts, children only gift exchanges, Christ centered 12 days of Christmas, service in church and community, person testimony growth opportunities.

We have really started to examine our personal expectations of Christmas tradition. Can we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and enjoy the love of all our family while getting caught up in how fancy our decorations are, how many lights we have up outside, how many gifts we can shower on each other? What do we enjoy about this time of year? Shopping at the crazy mall or visiting with our grandmother?

Wow, 9 years of worry on my part for nothing. We are melding both of our family's traditions, throwing out some things from both, and coming out with something totally unique. Elder Henry B. Eyering spoke on Sunday about traditions in honoring the Savior at this time of year. He talked about his own family, and how each year the traditions changed to fit the needs of it's members. I also read a quick article (much shorter than this blabber fest) about our Holiday Expectations, please take a quick minute to read it. Than comment here about your family's traditions. How have they changed? How have you melded your familial cultures?

Sorry for the length of this post......I'm actually positive no one will get this far in my ramblings. I guess it is mostly for me. By next year, John and I will have fine tuned more of our ideas about gifts at Christmas time, but for now the idea of being able change traditions for our needs and eliminating monetary gifts as a central focus is all the gift I need.