Thanksgiving Day Greetings (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I know that a lot of families have traditions that go way
back. But with everyone being spread out
so far about this huge country of ours, how many of those have fallen to the
wayside? Or how about families that
don’t have kids, do they maintain those traditions? Or how about blended families, how do they choose which ones to continue on?
I fall into the first two categories. My mother is in Arizona and my sister is in
California. But then we didn’t have a
lot of traditions to carry on in the first place. It seems as though they were lost in my
generation. Heck I am worried that once
my mother gets too old there won’t be any more family reunions either. I know that I won’t be hosting them as I
don’t even know how to get ahold of most of my family.
I also don’t have any children so what few traditions we had
left, I just let fall to the wayside.
And my husband’s family had a couple like getting together on Christmas
Eve but I don’t really get along with them.
Heck my husband doesn’t even get along with his close relatives so going
over there is something that we pass on.
Since we have moved into our new home however we have
started a couple of our own traditions.
One thing that we do is host a potluck for our friends on the third Saturday
of every month. It is a heck of a lot of
fun and gives us time to just enjoy each other.
Lots of good food and conversation.
Another tradition we have started is hosting a Thanksgiving
dinner. This again is for us and our
friends. Most of us don’t have families
nearby to celebrate with so we celebrate together. We have been doing this for 2 years now. So a new tradition but one all the same.
I think that this year also I will host a cookie exchange
for Yule. Or perhaps get together to
make up some gifts for Yule. Hmm… I will have to think more about those.
So how about you? Do
you have family traditions that you continue on? Or perhaps you have like myself made up your
own?
Most of our traditions have either been set aside or been changed to fit the times. Indeed, I think the only Holiday that has kept any traditions to it at all is Christmas. The rest of the holidays have become just reasons to get together for a big family dinner. While growing up we altered traditions fit our lives at the time. Mom worked at a nursing home and so often had to work on Christmas Day. Since you just CAN'T make a kid way ALL day to get at the gifts under the tree, we'd open our gifts on Christmas Eve, then just have out stockings to get into in the morning. When mom switched jobs to one where she was home on Christmas morning ( when she really REALLY, wanted the gifts to be opened) we'd get to open one gift on Christmas Eve, and the rest had to wait until the morning AFTER breakfast. Now a days, there's no more Eve gifts, but we now do my own tradition that I started when I discovered that despite how much mom loved getting into her stocking along with us, there was no surprise to it for her, since she bought it all.. so I started sneaking in little things into hers... which eventually got everyone else doing it :)
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