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Monday, October 27, 2008

I have a confession.

I don't let too many people know this about me, so I'm letting you in. My secret is...I love holidays. I love everything about them, I love the smell, the sound, the anticipation and of course the taste! Every year we have traditions that we keep up and some years we make new traditions. Traditions keep the kids coming home, and are the memories we carry. I don't remember what I got for Christmas and when, but I do remember the special things, the traditions and knowing what we'd be doing, anticipating those special days. When I was growing up, we spent every holiday (EVERY HOLIDAY) at my Gramma Sweet's house, no one went out of town and no one planned much with their husbands families on those special days. We spent all day Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas with my whole family. We'd eat and nap, play games, and talk, open gifts if there were any to open and just have a great day! My cousins and I are all very close, we're very active in each others lives, as active as we are with our siblings. It never mattered who we were with, it was like being with our own parents because they loved us all equally. Last year things changed up a little bit, my Dad was too sick to go to Thanksgiving for long and to Christmas at all...so just Todd, the boys and I went. As adults and family in our own respect, we're still forming our own traditions, still deciding what we will continue to do in the coming years, what will keep our kids coming home. We have basics, the important stuff, but it's the little stuff too. It's waking up to a certain smell that screams "it's Christmas" going to bed with a certain thought in mind. For me, it's spending the night at Gramma Sweets house on Christmas night with my cousin Tim (my birth year twin - we all have one - another post) and maybe my brother. Now having kids of my own, I realize how special that time must have been for my parents to have that night, just for them, and how much it may have helped my Gramma not be too lonely on Christmas night. But alas, we have to figure out what works for us, and because my siblings are so inconsistent we can never count on them to do the same things twice for a holiday so none of our tradition can revolve around them...so it revolves around the people who are a constant. And the things that I can count on. I love holidays for the constants, for the traditions and for the surprises.

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