traditions

Growing up there are a few holiday traditions that I remember and hold dear to my heart: Christmas Eve with the Italian side of my family; eating Chex Mix; playing with the nativity set at my grandma’s.

The traditions of my childhood were set in place before my birth, growing in the childhoods of my parents. Now that I have a family of my own I want my daughter to have traditions that she will hold close to her own heart when she grows up and has a family of her own. I struggled the first couple holiday seasons of her life, trying to make everything happen: baking cookies, making Chex Mix, creating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day feasts that would feed an army. Inviting our chosen family to share our meals. Making sure all the decorations were just right. I focused on detail after detail trying to create perfect holidays filled with magic.

What I didn’t understand those first few years of my daughter’s life is that magic can’t be made by hyper-focusing on every detail. Magic happens when we let go of control and let it flow. Traditions are created over time – they are the beautiful things that occur every year because we want to do them, not out of obligation, rather, out of love and joy.

The last couple years I have been letting go of control and letting our holiday traditions manifest and grow. After years of creating the “perfect” Christmas Feast with friends, last year Nick requested we have a quiet Christmas Dinner, just the three of us. We compromised – Christmas Dinner just the three of us and a Boxing Day Feast with our friends. As fate would have it, we lost power at our house on Christmas Day and couldn’t cook at home. So, ala a Christmas Story, we went out to Chinese food. It was packed, and it took forever for the food to come. Still, it was fun and nice and something totally different from what we had done for years (including the years we were together before our daughter was born).

This year we asked our daughter what she wanted for Christmas Dinner. I had let go of controlling the Holiday Feast, having the same thing year in and year out. Our daughter said she wanted Chinese food. And so, we went to Chinese food again this year. It wasn’t as crowded as last year, we got our food in a timely manner. It was beautiful spending the time with my family, sharing our entrees, talking and laughing.

I don’t know if we’ll go to Chinese food next Christmas. I’m letting this tradition grow as it will. I’m opening our life to the possibilities that life has to offer, letting go of control and letting beauty and joy manifest into my life. It’s both freeing and scary, exhilarating and terrifying and I can’t wait to watch our family traditions grow over the year to come.

I’m sitting in my living room, tree lit, winter village up with twinkle lights all around it, candles glowing softly throughout the house. Music is playing quietly on the ipod and our daughter is at the family laptop typing up a letter to her Gram while my husband is upstairs working.

Our new Advent calendar is up on the wall. I made the calendar this year and each day has a special activity for us. Traditionally, since our daughter’s second Christmas season when she was a little over 18 months, I make a countdown chain and each night she gets to tear off a link of the chain to see how much closer to Christmas we are. I didn’t intend on doing that this year, thinking this new calendar tradition would replace the old countdown chain.

I never intended the countdown chain to be a tradition. I did it last minute that first year because the felt advent calendar kit I had purchased sat unmade in it’s box. The same happened the next year and the next. Last year we bought a Lego City advent calendar and did the chain too. (The felt calendar kit still sits in a box, in our closet, taunting me, daring me to make it.)

When I told our daughter that the experiential calendar I made was going to be our Advent calendar, that we wouldn’t have the countdown chain, she got so upset. She wanted the countdown chain. I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that the chain IS a family tradition, whether it was my intention or not. While I was thinking it’s just some construction paper and glitter glue, my daughter is thinking this is family ritual, holiday tradition.

We made the countdown chain together this year. She helped cut the strips and helped me glue some of the chain links. After a lot of consideration, she decided she wanted it to hang across the bookcases that also holds our stockings and the winter village, where it traditionally lives.

While the countdown chain is an “old” tradition for our family, having our daughter help me make it is new this year. It marks the beginning of a new stage in our family, as she grows older and more independent. As she wields scissors and helps make decisions about where some of the holiday decorations should go we continue our quiet traditions with love and anticipation. We stay cozy in the old–decorating our tree on Thanksgiving Day, hanging our stockings from the JOY mantle hangers–as we bravely go into the unknown of a holiday without shopping, seeing the magic and abundance in the quiet moments instead of creating large moments filled with excess.

As our home transforms to welcome the holiday season and the countdown to days filled with more light begins, I also bravely embark on a new adventure. This new site marks the launch of my new business, the quiet beginning of acknowledging my special gifts and offering them to you.

I look forward to our journey together, through this beautiful holiday season and beyond. May we all find Joy, Connection and Light in the quiet–and not so quiet–moments this time of year brings.

joy connection light — Joy, Connection and Light

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