Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone or anyone who may possibly come by! I was thinking this morning of traditions that I had since childhood and how to keep them for our future child. What do we keep for our child from my husband and I. Maybe its a little premature; I am a year in advance, but it is fun. The basics are rather simple, both of us are from Catholic families who celebrate traditions as many American Catholic families... but its the simple things. My husband's family opens gifts on Christmas Eve and my family on Christmas morning. Then I notice our own families do not celebrate as before. It could be partially because of lack of young children. Many of the things you do for this holiday is for enjoyment of children. This generation just isn't producing the same, and when they do they tend to have broken families. These situations always make holidays awkward. I would be lying if I said it didn't bother me. I want my kids to have wonderful Christmas' like the ones I remember growing up. But I grew up in a small community that was practically all Christian. Everyone decorated and everything on the TV and radio after Thanksgiving was all about Christmas. All my relatives were married with two or three kids and I had three cousins that were born within months of myself. We spent time with both grandparents who lived in the same town and sometimes relatives from out of town would stop by as well. We would go to midnight mass and mass on Sunday morning after opening all the Christmas presents. Everything was closed and deserted, so you had nothing to do but stay home and play with your new gifts.

Now my parents only had me and my brother, and I am the only one that seems to even have a possibility for children... We are about to give up on him even getting married. My husband's family is bigger. His older sister has two children, but is divorced and brings over the boyfriend's family every other year. The other has a boyfriend that lives in the house with her parents. He also has a child that lives mostly with the mother, but one that he had out of wedlock in high school. So it never leads to what I think is a normal Christmas. It is always great though when everyone is around opening gifts, but I think more and more that Christmas may be something for our immediate family to spend together every year. This year we ended up waiting till past ten to open gifts when the children finally made it over after eating at the boyfriend's house. I think the other child is coming over some time this morning to open gifts with his father after spending time with his mother.

I know the only thing you can do is try to instill tradition as much as you can when they are young so they celebrate and follow their faith as they get older. I just dread being in the situation of having to say everyone else is wrong, but at the same time I have no problem in doing so. I am not one to believe in political correctness or I wouldn't post such a thing.

Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope you enjoy the new year as well!