My husband, Allan, and I have been crafting Christmas memories for almost forty years. We have added new ornaments to the tree each year to remind us of something that we experienced as a family, baked and decorated hundreds of cookies, read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas with kids snuggling on our laps, tramped through woods on frozen ground to find just the right tree, strung lights across the bushes and roofline, hung the stockings my mother hand-sewed, created communities with Dickens Village houses, watched countless Christmas movies…you get it. While some of the traditions have evolved as our kids have grown (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was replaced long ago with “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and the outside lights are now just candles in the windows), many remain just because it is something we have always done.
It will probably come as no surprise then, as our children are now young adults, that we are downsizing Christmas (or at least trying to). A few weeks ago I was having lunch with my thirty-something daughter. The conversation went something like this:
Me: I don’t think I’m going to put up the stockings this year.
Ann: What??? You have to! And they need to be hung on the staircase where they always go!
Me: I’ve also been thinking about not baking as many cookies. After all, you just aren’t around to help me decorate them, or eat them!
Ann: But what about the Russian Tea Cakes and the Peanut Blossoms – you have to make those!
She must have quickly alerted her brother, because it wasn’t long before I got a text message from him.
I went home that day and thought about what she said as I looked over the pictures from Christmases past – a history of memories caught in a series of snapshots. What I came to realize is that although both of my children are beginning to start their own Christmas traditions, the ones they grew up with say “home,” and Christmas is about coming home to the comfortable traditions they helped create.
While there are some traditions I will always keep (like adding an ornament each year that symbolizes something special), there are others that eventually will change or maybe just fade away. But Christmas will always be about home and the memories we created as a family.
By the way, the stockings are up, but not all the cookies were made.
Merry Christmas!
It will probably come as no surprise then, as our children are now young adults, that we are downsizing Christmas (or at least trying to). A few weeks ago I was having lunch with my thirty-something daughter. The conversation went something like this:
Me: I don’t think I’m going to put up the stockings this year.
Ann: What??? You have to! And they need to be hung on the staircase where they always go!
Me: I’ve also been thinking about not baking as many cookies. After all, you just aren’t around to help me decorate them, or eat them!
Ann: But what about the Russian Tea Cakes and the Peanut Blossoms – you have to make those!
She must have quickly alerted her brother, because it wasn’t long before I got a text message from him.
I went home that day and thought about what she said as I looked over the pictures from Christmases past – a history of memories caught in a series of snapshots. What I came to realize is that although both of my children are beginning to start their own Christmas traditions, the ones they grew up with say “home,” and Christmas is about coming home to the comfortable traditions they helped create.
While there are some traditions I will always keep (like adding an ornament each year that symbolizes something special), there are others that eventually will change or maybe just fade away. But Christmas will always be about home and the memories we created as a family.
By the way, the stockings are up, but not all the cookies were made.
Merry Christmas!
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