traditions

It seems that everyone has their own set of family traditions over the holidays. One of my friend's family reads The Polar Express to each other on Christmas Eve, no matter how much time has passed since they were kids believing in Santa Claus. Brian's family watches It's a Wonderful Life together every year.

This got me thinking about my own family's traditions when I was younger. I remember my sisters and I would take pictures in front of the Christmas tree each year with our dog Misty. Year to year, you can see how we passed down our Christmas outfits to the next younger sister..and oh what lovely outfits they were. For the sake of not further embarrassing myself and sisters I will only post one picture. I remember my older sister would always wear her "Acme" t-shirt on Christmas morning, without reason. One person in my family would be appointed Santa that year and would be in charge of distributing the gifts. These yearly rituals, no matter how small, would become our traditions.

Even though I hated getting dressed up for pictures or going to midnight service on Christmas Eve, I now appreciate all of those things we did together as a family because as each year passes it is getting harder to get together. It has become increasingly challenging to schedule gatherings now that we all have our own families and spouse's families schedules to consider. Sometimes I wish it were simple again and weren't such a chore to get the whole family together. I wish my dog Misty was still around and I wish my sisters and I could take a picture each year in front of the Christmas tree (minus the overload of plaid and lace dresses). So while I remain envious of the lucky families who still carry out their yearly traditions and get together with ease, I am moving my focus to building new traditions. Traditions that may embarrass Lily as she gets older (she'll appreciate it later), but nonethelesss, traditions that we have built together and will always carry out as a family.

So what will our new yearly traditions be?

Collecting meaningful ornaments?

Making a gingerbread house?

Or getting Lily to pose in matching pajamas with her cousin?

Only time will tell!