Traditions

Apparently long periods of time with no blog activity is my "thing"....pressing on...

I love traditions. I enjoy participating in old traditions and creating new ones. I love how they bring people together and make you feel like you are a part of something much bigger than yourself. Traditions bring a sense of belonging. Whether it's holiday traditions with my family or silly traditions that I do with my friends, there is something about sharing this common experience time after time that gets me. My family has certain traditions surrounding Christmas that I adore...
We always go to Christmas Eve service and then come home and have appetizer-type food for dinner. Then we open some presents from each other and always get new pajamas from my parents. Christmas morning we wake up and open the rest of the presents & our stockings (my personal favorite) and have a delicious breakfast made by my sweet mom. We spend the rest of the morning hanging out together and then the last several years, we have started to go see a movie together as a family. After the movie, we go back to the house & have Christmas dinner. It's wonderful...we just spend the day together. This year Christmas was different...not bad...just different. Christmas Eve was very much the same...with the delightful added blessing of my beautiful niece Emma, who lit up the evening. Christmas day was what had me feeling a little off. My sister had to work all day & my brother & his family were having Christmas at their house before coming over that night. So that left me & my parents. We slept in & got up to have breakfast together. Then we all just kinda stared at each other...not really sure what to do for the rest of the day, as we were waiting for the rest of the family to get there. It was weird. I did some laundry & mom cooked, while dad watched TV & took a nap. It felt more like a typical Saturday then a holiday. I started to feel lost without the traditions that we had followed for so many years. I like knowing what to expect at holidays & began to fear that we were turning into one of those families that just does whatever. I guess I was afraid that we were losing something...something that had bonded us for so long. I realize this may all sound a little dramatic, but to me, there was security in our traditions & without them I felt insecure. While I was pondering all of this, my brother & his family arrived and my sister got home from work & we celebrated Christmas, a little differently than what I was used to, but we celebrated none the less. We talked & laughed & reminisced about past Christmas's & enjoyed watching Emma & Jacob play with their gifts. It was then, as I looked around the room that was filled with these people that I love so fiercely & have experienced so much with that I realized, the thing that I love most about our traditions is that they are "Ours". We have created them together and will create many more & the common thread is that it will be done Together. In that, I find security.