Tradition!

Tradition rules in this household.  At least that is what my grown-up children believe.

I think I may have created Christmas Tradition Monsters.  Yes, it is true that my adult children have their homes decorated for Christmas long before their parents.   And this seems to have messed with their minds.

See, tradition calls for Mom and Dad to work themselves into a frenzy to have the entire house decorated inside and out by the Monday after Thanksgiving.  We’ve already broken tradition number one.

Sunday evening after my kids all sent me picture messages of their trees – two of them real trees – they all asked if their dad and I had ours up yet.  Here’s where tradition number two comes into play.

In our household, our family would trek to a tree farm on the Friday after Thanksgiving and cut down a real Christmas pine tree.   A couple of years ago, hubby and I did the unthinkable – we bought an artificial tree!  Oh, the horrors of it!  Our kids were appalled and still haven’t let us forget that we broke the beloved tradition of pine needles all over the floor.

After responding back and assuring them that their trees were absolutely beautiful (and they were!), I told them we actually had put ours up that same day.  Their dad (after some grumbling and fussing with lights that wouldn’t work) strung the twinkle lights around the artificial branches, but then we lost motivation for adorning it with the scads of ornaments we’ve collected over the years.

Oh yeah, that’s another tradition.  Every year since oldest daughter was born, we have purchased an ornament for each of our children, many of those they chose themselves.  My thought process was that when they moved out or got married, they would then have a box of their own Christmas adornments to take with them.

We also have ornaments from our vacation travels, so the result is that for 28 years, we’ve had a hodge-podge tree with, shall we say, an eclectic assortment of ornaments.   No beautiful theme trees for us at least not yet.  I’m fairly certain that part of my reason for not trimming the tree now is because I’m a little stymied about how I want to decorate it this year.

But I digress.  After telling the kids that the tree was up, lit, but not adorned, I’ve received a couple “scoldings” from them.  First came this text message from son:  “I didn’t realize that Scrooge and the Grinch were my parents.”

He’s a character, that one.  We can always count on him to crack us up with some joke, or silly enactment, or something just plain witty.  Of course, I had to text him back and ask which one of us was which.  His reply informed me that his dear ol’ dad had to be the Grinch because he is hairier.  (Well, thank you son for that one, at least!) Naturally I answered, “Bah, humbug!”

The next day, middle daughter left us a message on the home phone.   She had a question for me, but then after her usual “I love you, call me” sign off came this afterthought, “You better get busy and get that tree decorated!!”

I’m seriously considering leaving the tree as it is just to see what their reactions would be when they come home for Christmas, but I’m hesitant because I think it would really freak them out!

Yet another tradition we have is decorating the outside of the house a certain way – red lights on all the shrubs, white lights outlining the porch roof and around the garage, white candle lights and wreaths in all the front windows, spotlight on the front door.

Tradition says we should already have this all accomplished and our lighting display should be ramping up our electric bill by now.  But our house is dark and our neighbors probably wonder if we took off for Florida or something!  By now, the snow and extreme cold with wind chill factored in is acting as a huge deterrent to getting that light display arranged.  Oops, another tradition may go down the tube.

Inside the house, the traditions continue.  There are certain holiday decorations that have stood the test of time at our place.  Christmas stockings must be hung on the family room fireplace mantle.  Our collection of nutcrackers must line up in formation somewhere.   Ditto for the snowmen.   The nativity scene also must find a spot to shine.

And then there’s the Christmas village.  What a time-consuming job that is putting up all those little houses, people, trees, etc.  I’ve already relegated the Christmas village boxes to the basement.  This year the village is in hibernation.   I’m also seriously considering a minimal decorating job inside these four walls.

The food we serve at our house for Christmas dinner is yet another tradition that should be preserved, according to my young adults.  Baking cookies together is another.   When the kids were all still at home, we would spend an entire day baking and decorating dozens of cookies and then wrapping up containers of the goodies to be delivered to friends, neighbors and family.

But this year, I’ve been too busy at work and too tired when I get home to even begin thinking about holiday baking.  (Don’t tell anyone, but I bought some of that ready to bake Christmas cookie dough! I know, scandalous!!)

I have been contemplating preparations for Christmas dinner and mentally starting a grocery shopping list.  Dare I change the menu this year?  Not a wise idea.  I don’t want a mutiny on my hands on Christmas Day.  There are some traditions that just shouldn’t be trifled with.  And that reminds me, I better remember to buy that mint chocolate chip ice cream for our traditional Christmas Eve sundaes!

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