:rolleyes:
Repeat to yourself: “Everybody is different. My experiences and opinions are neither unique nor universal. And that’s OK.”
This is my Christmas gift to you. Use it wisely.
That’s just not true. It’d be nice if it were, but it’s not. Look, some of my absolute fondest memories of my childhood were Christmas cookies. They weren’t distributed to the world super-mommy cookies. They were tacky-as-hell kid-decorated monstrosities that we hung on a tree that was never seen by anyone. And to my kid self, they weren’t work, they were fun, they were done as a family.
But now, as an adult? I see that my mom had to go shopping for ingredients, she had to make the refrigerator dough in advance, she had to finish up when we got bored and wandered off, she had to clean up (and clean up again if we “helped” the first time). Sometimes she had to drop everything and run to the store for other ingredients when we kids started flipping through the cookbook and said “Wow Mom, can we try these, too?” She did all that with love, with affection, with genuine enjoyment, but it was, I can now see with adult eyes, a lot more work for her than for us: we got to do it as long as it was fun and stop when it wasn’t. She was committed to seeing it through and it was, I am sure, a pain in the ass at times.
One of the most frustrating things about being a person that creates these kind of experiences is the idea that somehow it shouldn’t be work, it shouldn’t take effort, if it’s going to be “real” it should be natural, it should just happen. My mom gave us some great times and I think it’d be really insulting to say “Well, I am sure that was easy for her, because the best traditions aren’t work”.
I’ve never done Christmas cards. I didn’t see that it was “worth it” when I was younger.
Its a tradition my mother had that I regret not doing now that I’m older. Because I don’t send them, I don’t get them. I don’t get the stupid photo cards and the even stupider Christmas letter. But as I fall out of touch with some people I wish I’d maintained a Christmas card tradition with them - a once a year touch base. A “look how big Sandy’s kids have gotten” and “I didn’t realize Bob took a job with General Mills.”
Nowadays, facebook fills that gap with some people. But a lot of the people I wish I’d stayed in touch with don’t seem to be facebook people.
I also wonder, monstro’s post had me thinking. I AM the family maker, because I am the matriarch of my little clan of two children and a husband. If I don’t make Christmas traditions for them when they are little, they won’t have them. If I don’t get out the tree because its too much bother, they won’t have a tree. If I didn’t wrap presents, they’d be in bags, which might be ok - but we just talked about this yesterday when my daughter was popping a gift into a bag and I said “do you think its fun to unwrap presents?” “yes” “more fun than taking them out of a gift bag?” “yes” “that is why we wrap presents.” If I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t be responsible for maintaining intergenerational traditions. Monstro doesn’t have kids - of course she isn’t the family maker, that role is with her mother, that responsibility isn’t hers, and it would be hard being (IIRC) unmarried with no kids to even take it on.
I also think that the real traditions take little time or are done as a family is hilarious. What tradition do most people remember about Christmas from their childhood? Walking downstairs on Christmas morning to see Santa presents under the tree. When my kids outgrew Santa, it was the first to go (our tradition is that Santa has so many stops to make on Christmas night that once you are older and in on how he does it, the presents appear under the tree as they are wrapped). It was the first to go because staying up far after excited kids have gone to sleep to drag presents out of their hiding places - and in a lot of cases wrap them because you couldn’t get them wrapped before them - is a pain in the butt. But its a worthwhile pain in the butt for the delight in your kid’s eyes on Christmas morning.
Manda Jo’s mom probably wouldn’t have bothered with all the work without kids - and if she bothered with Christmas cookies, it would have been easier - no sudden changes in the menu as kids flip through the book. And I have NEVER managed to get frosting on my ceiling - the same cannot be said for my children.
I guess I wasn’t counting this as a tradition, but you’re right that it is. It is magical and wonderful to wake up to a whole bunch of presents under the tree. Once we hit adolescence, though, my parents stopped doing this. Because the tradition stopped having meaning for everyone involved. The presents would gradually appear over the course of a week. Watching the swelling largess then became a different “tradition”. Just like the tradition we have now, where everyone stays up late at night, holed up in different bedrooms, wrapping presents because we’ve all waited to the last minute. We’ve been doing this a lot longer than anything else.
Kids and parents probably have different ideas of what the family traditions are. Thus, they don’t really belong to any one person. But I agree with you that there must be a keeper of the sentimentality. Some one who says, “Don’t throw that out!” or reminds everyone why something is significant. If it were left to people like me, there would be nothing for the family to cherish.
(Every year, my father gives me a little hell for not having a Christmas tree. He says this makes me a grinch. No. It means I have no children and no burning desire to have yet another thing for my cats to knock over. If I had kids, I’d probably get a tree and we’d decorate it together, just so they would know what it’s all about. But I’d secretly hope they didn’t want one so I could drop the pretense. On second thought, maybe that means I am a grinch! :))
How about each other? 
Yeah, that. It’s something my brother didn’t get for many, many years, years in which I honestly expected that if any of our family traditions were going to be carried past my parents, it would be up to me. But as he’s gotten older, and his daughter has grown, things like family-making and the way tradition ties who we are and the family we have now to who we used to be and the family we used to have are more important to him than they used to be.
No tradition is effortless, even the organic ones. My grandma always bought each of us kids an ornament every year. Eventually, my mom started doing the same thing for my brother and me, and then over the years Dad, and our spouses, and my niece. And I do the same thing for my husband and nieces. Grandmas never expected or announced this was going to be Our Family Tradition–she said she was going to do it until we were grown up so we wouldn’t have naked trees when we moved out. And when we grew up, she stopped. She had no way to anticipate we’d still be getting ornaments nearly 40 years later, ya know? It was totally organic. But it wasn’t effortless. The ornaments never just magically appear–someone has to go to a store and buy the ornaments or the supplies to make them. Someone has to make sure they get to the people they’re intended for.
Always including something I’ve handmade in my nieces’ Christmas and birthday presents is another organic tradition. And you want to talk about effort? Hoooooo, buddy. :eek: I’ve cut myself, jabbed myself with countless pins and needles, spent weeks hunting for just the right fabric/yarn/pattern, nearly given myself carpal tunnel–and the older one was still sleeping under one of her toddler quilts when she was big enough that it only covered her from ankle to waist.
Cards are easy. It probably took about 2 hours to do 100 Christmas cards, most of them personalized this year. It doesn’t matter to me if the people we send the cards to send us one back, not everybody has the same values of course - our only criterion is that we actively know and interact with the receiver, even if it’s just occasionally. (Other than family - even if I don’t hear from you in 5 years, I’m still sending you a card.)
Addressing is a cinch with a spreadsheet, mail merge, and Avery 5160 clear labels.
I’ve been following this thread and I agree with this. My kids helped decorate the tree this year (following several years where their “help” was additional work) and the older one put up all the lights. But we still had a lot of work with getting the tree out/decorations out and then packing up the boxes etc. And it’s also the time of year when we have extra work with school holiday activities and parties as well as extra-curricular parties/events. Most of these require active participation and expect us to bring something and they are extra work.
We’ve had some unexpected time-consuming items happen this year and our kids cried when we didn’t put up the tree after Thanksgiving weekend because that’s their tradition. The other tradition that they love is making cookies together. It is something that they look forward to and ask about. And it is a LOT of work with little helpers. If it was just my husband and myself then we’d skip the traditions some years because we don’t need them. We already have the memories and understand that one year without them is ok.
We don’t do a whole lot (we don’t have family in the area and that cuts down dramatically on the workload) but all of the little items do add up to extra work. The traditions that we have kept are worth it to me (and our kids) but they are extra work.
One thing about kids - you realize that skipping a year with them is a big deal. You only get them for a few (relative) years. The first two are pretty moot in terms of giving them memories (but you are generally really excited) and maybe even the third. Then you’ll have a few good years to really give them a childhood with the delight and wonder and opportunity. Then they’ll start getting busy - and fitting in decorating a tree and cookie baking in between swim team and drumline and basketball practice and homework and their social calendars means you may or may not actually not manage to bake cookies with them - but that’s also when you realize that in a few years, he might decide to spend Christmas at his girlfriends out of state and you won’t have him home at all to make his favorite cookie.
Mother’s Day is coming up. Same thing applies here.
thanks NWH. Husband asked. I said jewelry.
He also commented that it was such a pain in the ass to go out to eat last year, so maybe this year, “we’ll” do something nice at home. I don’t know if that meant he would cook. :eek: Of if he meant that I will cook something nice for us. 
Maybe order pizza?
highly likely
Nothing wrong with that. Enjoy it!
Going out to eat a couple of days AFTER a major theme holiday is the way to go. Nice empty restaurants 'cuz everyone’s blown their dough on the Special One. 
We do that alot. For all my hangups, I’m not big on dates - if my birthday gets remembered within a few weeks, I’m good.
Both points made in this thread stand - ladies, if your husband or children ask what you want, and you want something, don’t say “nothing” - say, “I want jewelry” or “I want a rosebush - and for you to plant the damn thing” or “I want to go out for brunch” or “I want breakfast in bed brought to me by smiling children - and when I get downstairs it would be really nice not to have to clean up :)”
Gentlemen, if you are married to a woman - and have children with her - or are the son of a woman who pulls the nothing thing on you, then is pissy about it, don’t fall for it again this year. At least give it a try. Call her mother or her best friend and ask. And whatever you do, if you are Dad in this situation do not say “its our kids responsibility” - that works once your kids are older - but until they are capable of at the very least remembering its Mother’s Day and making a card, you are on the hook to model it unless you are married to a woman who truly could not care less (in which case, lucky you). And if that woman is someone with whom you’ve been trying for years and is never happy, then get the token gift and don’t let it bug you (and I hope its your mother and not your wife).
Bumping this thread.
And there’s one other thing that may or may not be in here. If your kids’ dad’s relatives get them presents, whether you’re still married to him or not, do not make those gifts magically disappear on their first day back at school. Just don’t do it.
:dubious:
Happy birthday, Silvorange!
Seriously?!? What kind of person would deny toys to their child?
Deleted, didn’t look at date.