changing traditions...

We're having a Sunday am service.

We have 2 traditions. Getting PJs on Chrismtas Eve and having orange sherbet pineapple juice floats. That's it!!

I was VERY adamant that we were not going to have any family traditions. It's the gift I'm giving my future ILs.

My church calendar has very obviously just been filled in with auto fill. I'm expecting changes and NO service Sunday morning.....but we have a new minister so I could be wrong.

Now, we go out for dinner on Christmas Eve - DH, me and our 3 kids - and then home to open gifts and hang out. If Christmas is on a weekday, DS1 works until 6 pm so the event starts after that. I have church at 10 pm. We go to my MILs for Christmas dinner and then to my sister's house late afternoon for horsey doovers and socializing. I think this may be our last year without changes. DS1 has a 2 year significant other and they are discussing how to include each other in family events.

I'm not a huge tradition person. I'd be just as happy with a family gathering on any other day than Christmas Eve and Christmas. My daughter on the other hand thinks EVERYTHING is a tradition and change will be hard for her.

My family changed all our traditions after my dad died; it just felt wrong to do things the same way without him. DH's family just kept on trucking when his Dad died, no changes at all. It feels so strange to me.

Like Lisa, DH & I want to tend to steer clear of TRADITION.
Tradition got Jesus hung on the cross.
Tradition can be a set up for disappointment.

My mom liked Tradition, & she liked to make her own.
And she'd be sorely disappointed if it didn't work out her way.
I notice this with DH's mom, too.

Dh was driving her back from Thanksgiving & she asked him about coming to visit her over Christmas.
DH explained that with his job & our family vacation over Christmas break, no, we weren't coming for Christmas.
Kinda miffed, he told me, "I was driving her back ... I'd just spent a few days with her."

We'll go over to see her in January.

Anyway ... our family.
Last year was the 1st year that we weren't really all together.
DD was dating her now husband, and she had to work on Christmas Day. She's a Social Worker.
We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve ... something we'd never done (& we liked it).

This year, all the kids ARE coming for Christmas & I am happy & grateful, but I do not expect it.
I imagine that DD#1 will come over & spend Christmas Eve with us, & we will go to Church, but DD#2 will be with her husband's family.
I will prepare a nice something (Prime Rib, I think). Church is @ 7. We're just having Christmas Eve Service this year.
On Christmas morning, whomever is here will be able to enjoy our usual Christmas Crepes with bacon or sausage, fruit and fresh whipping cream.
Though my sister still isn't talking to me, I think we are going over there for Christmas dinner (we usually do).
If not, I'll prepare a dinner for whomever wants to come here.

I'd like to get together with all of my siblings, as we did when my mom was still alive, but that's doubtful. We all have our lives & families.
This year, 1st time ever, we're taking a vacation over New Years. I'm very excited!!
The kids are coming & we are going to the caribbean.

I've always thought going away to someplace warm over Christmas would be WONDERFUL & this year, we're pretty close to Christmas with the trip.
Even DH said maybe next year we'll just plan to go away over Christmas, too.
You know though, that won't work so well with DD & her husband, and understandably so.

But I've always thought, when the kids get older, it'd be so nice for us to go away to someplace warm & whomever can come, can come with us.
I'd like to rent a beach house someplace ... but it has to be WARM.
FL isn't always warm in December. That's why we're going to the caribbean this year.

Our "traditions", if you could call them that, are pretty small and flexible too.

Homemade quiche on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning is something that DH's family always did - I started that when we got married. I think that might be the ONLY consistent Christmas tradition we have had in our 11 years of marriage actually!

Everything else has varied over the years. We usually try to spend time with our parents, but some years it hasn't happened. My parents were sick one year and ended up coming closer to New Years. DH's mom/step-dad sometimes go out of town to visit step-dad's kids over Christmas. It varies depending on weather, health and everyone's schedules and needs. Its no big deal, so long as we do something sometime.

Actually, THAT is "tradition" on my side of the family - the tradition of having flexible days and plans. My dad worked for the WA state ferry system for many years - as a engine room worker on the ferry, his job didn't take days off just because it was a holiday. The ferries kept running and that meant my dad sometimes worked Christmas. While we always had Christmas with our own family on Christmas day (either before Dad went to work or when He came home), my parents adjusted Christmas celebrations with my grandparents to other days when I was a kid. Christmas became both flexible and extendable. That is something that has been carried over into my life today - we celebrate with our kids the day of and with other family when it works.

Church-wise this year, our church is doing both a Christmas Eve service and also a later and shortened Sunday morning (Christmas day) service. They will be different services, not the same sermon done at different times. (My SIL's church is doing both days but the same service/sermon both times.) We decided that we will go as a family to the Christmas Eve service - my parents will also be joining us. On Sunday morning, we will go but DH will be serving on video and I will be serving in the nursery. (Not sure if there will be kid's programs that day, but they can always come with me - or DS might even be able to go with DH.)

Stuff is changing around here too since we have only two living at home, and one of those is not home a lot.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing either. I'd like for the one who's not living at home to spend the night christmas eve. I'll suggest it, but don't plan to pressure him. We'll work out other timing for Christmas if not.

We're going to go to Christmas eve services, but not sure who all will be with us.
Our church has Christmas day service, and we'll probably be going to that. (hmmm, perhaps that makes buying the honey baked ham more of a possibility??)

Our traditions are evolving around aging kids, too.
It was weird for my husband and I to put up our tree all by ourselves this year.

And, because we have a tradition of buying a dated ornament each year, we're about to need a 10 foot tree to fit them all plus kids ornaments, vacation ornaments, etc. First world problems.

Hope y'all are able to start some sweet new traditions, and have a great season.

Our traditions have changed since moving away from family.... we go out to breakfast as a family on Christmas Eve. This year we are having both a Christmas even and Christmas Day service which we are both involved in. So we are hanging together after that just the four of us and having our own Christmas. That's completely new but I al excited for it.