Changing Traditions

Way back in my early years of marriage, we started a new tradition. It came with our first purchase of an artificial tree. I love Christmas, always have. Thanksgiving and Christmas are my two favorite holidays.

I have more memories of those two holidays from my childhood than any other. So it should come as no surprise, that once we bought an artificial tree, it went up the day after ^th and her neighbors thought the same thing.

Thanksgiving. Neighbors thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. My mom always put up her tree December 6

My feelings are the same as my mom’s. We put too much work into decorating and we want to enjoy it for as long as possible.

Now days I see a lot of Christmas trees up before Thanksgiving. Which brings me to my newest tradition. Since my children no longer come here for Christmas dinner – our house is way to small to accommodate them and the grandchildren (and now great grandchildren) that my children have taken over the holiday. That’s fine with me, but that also means they don’t get to enjoy my decorations. So….yep, I put them up before Thanksgiving. That allows me to enjoy them more. So needless to say, yep, the tree is up, the house is decorated and today, I’ll light the lights – at least outside. I couldn’t wait so I lit the tree already.

There’s something so cozy and serene about the lights. I love the ambiance. They’re the only lights in the room for the most part. I used to have candles lit around the room also, but one night I went to bed and forgot about one. Luckily I woke up in the middle of the night and saw it. So now I have battery operated candles. They look just as nice and I

don’t have to worry if I forget to turn them off.

The only reason I still have Thanksgiving dinner at my house is only half of my kids come for dinner. My daughters all go to their in-laws and my sons came here. I use past tense because the last two years one of my sons went to my daughter-in-law’s uncle’s. This year my oldest son will be going to his girl friend’s sister’s. That leaves my youngest son and his family. There’ll only be eight of us this year. Everyone else will come later for dessert and I look forward to it. I’m sure I’ve said before my favorite thing is to have my family around me. I’m very blessed my children all live within about 20 minutes of me. So another new tradition will begin and that’s okay. I love traditions. Next month I’ll write about another one. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.