Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Wow...I'm a Big Girl.

So I've got to confess...sometimes I don't feel like I'm an adult. Sometimes I feel like I'm still a college-kid, new to the world and just testing out my "real world legs". Which is pretty pathetic because I'm well past my college days, and graduate school days and well into motherhood and wife-hood. But still...I find myself still passing major milestones and this year, this Christmas...I will wake up in my own house, with MY own little family, and celebrate the big day. What traditions we establish, what kind of breakfast we eat, how the day shapes out is essentially all within my own control. Its very exciting...and kind of scary. The easy way out is of course to do nothing...it will unfold as fate decides. But I could also "mess with it" I could ring jingle bells at 2 am until the kids wake up and then say "oh, you just missed Santa!". We could open a present up tonight...we could save them all until tomorrow. We could eat only red and green foods for breakfast. I could make pot roast every year, starting tomorrow. We could bake cookies. Every year on Christmas Day we could bake Jesus a birthday cake. I could make the kids take a bath on Christmas morning and not let them open presents until after we read "A Christmas Carol" or pertinent bible passages or all the words in the dictionary that begin with the letter C. I could not put out any presents and put a pile of coal under the tree AND then say "Oh, that Santa is such a jokester...check the bathtub, kids." T-Dad and I could get drunk on egg nog and peppermint schnapps hot cocoa...giggling and laughing while the kids wondered why we were so happy. We could stay inside all day. We could go for a Christmas Walk. We could wear pajamas all day. We could have pizza or fish sticks. Hmmm...so many choices, guess I better decide soon.

8 comments:

~rachel~ said...

I sometimes still think I'm in college too, I think you should do everyone of those traditions! :)
Well not really, but I do kind of like the ringing bells at 2am thing- that would be fun maybe I'll do that in a few years!

I think there are times I would actually prefer to live far away from family and be forced to just spend time w/ my OWN little family!

SunnyD said...

We're staying in this year. We did it last year and loved it.

If not here, we love doing Christmas in Baltimore with my niece and nephews.

Mostly our rules are staying in our PJs all day. Cooking a nice meal (Joel is making a pork roast, and I've got the sides and dessert.)

But mostly, we're just going to play all day.

Amy said...

Yeah, I too feel like a youngster sometimes. It's hard for me to believe that it is up to me (and I say "me" because The Joker doesn't give a crap about traditions) to form the memeories my children will remember. I know 10 years from now they will not remember what gifts they got but the will remember something we did that we still do in future.
I did read "The Night Before Christmas" tonight. I'm hoping to make that one of our traditions.

The Fearless Freak said...

I'm in the boat of feeling like a youngster as well. RF didn't have any traditions so we've just continued my childhood ones. We see a movie on Xmas Eve, the kids open a present from each other then they go to bed. We get up whenever the first kid gets up (TG, neither of my kids want to get up at stupid o'clock" so usually around 7, we start). We have easy breakfast so no one has to kill themselves cooking. Then we hang out and eat sandwiches for lunch because we would rather play with new toys than cook.

The change is, of course, my IL demand face time and we usually end up going out there Xmas Day afternoon. This year my BIL and SIL went to Disney (my MIL is PISSED about that, let me tell you) so we are doing that New Year's Day. I think that is a tradition I would like to keep in the future. :)

Have fun setting up your families traditions :)

Quigs78 said...

This is the first year that we've been so far from our families and will not see them on Christmas day. Instead, we went to three different houses up north today and are going back on Saturday - all so the four of us could spend the day together.

We made cookies for Santa on the 23rd - I think that will become one of our traditions. And tomorrow, we're going out like "A Christmas Story" and going out for Chinese food! :)

gigi said...

This is how I felt this year. So many years, we've packed up the minivan with suitcases and wrapped presents and diaper bag and pac-n-play and food and entertainment and anything else you could think of, and then taken the 14 hour trek up to Minnesota so that we could split our time ever so evenly between the grandparents' houses. This year I said no. I want to have Christmas in my own house. It was really wonderful. Just today I said to K - "it actually gets to be all about us for once." (and we did stay in our pajamas all day)

Lavender Lemonade said...

Follow-up: So we ate out Chinese food for dinner on Christmas eve, that was cool. And then we put the kids to bed after church and wrapped until 2 am...I think that's never going to change. And on Christmas morning we had egg casserole and bagels/muffins...mmmmm. And then pretty much lounged around all day.

Lavender Lemonade said...

Oh and our big Christmas meal....Spaghetti and frozen meatballs. Delicious AND easy.