Take Easter for instance. We are a very religious family so of course Christ was at the center of it. But we also had fun with the other aspects of the holiday. We never really believed in the Easter Bunny or got our pictures taken with the evil looking fuzzy costume guy (why can't anyone make an Easter Bunny that doesn't look like it crawled out of a Steven King novel?). Anyways, back to Easter traditions. Every year we would dye Easter eggs. I remember the smell of vinegar, the dye staining my fingers, and and trying to see how dark I could get my eggs. I remember picking out my Easter dress and finding my Easter bonnet and shiny shoes. I remember getting my mom a corsage and picking iris's from the flower bed in the front yard. But mostly I remember every Easter morning waking up and running to the living room and sitting just in the hallway with my Easter basket, looking at all the candy that had mysteriously appeared overnight. I knew it was my parents who hid the candy all over the room, but I never quite figured out how they did it without me once catching them in the act. Now that I have kids of my own, I realize how deeply little ones can sleep (once you actually get them to sleep that is). This is one of many traditions I have the joy to pass on to my kids. The Weatherman's family would make Easter basket with toys and a scavenger hunt to find the basket. This is easy to combine with my family tradition, so our kids can celebrate both.
The scavenger hunt part will come when they get older.
I also recently found out I got the 4th of July off work so we will be able to go back and visit family this year, our first time in a while visiting on the 4th of July. The tradition with my family is blowing things up. We start the day attending a parade, then the rest of the day is BBQ, fire, lots of food, fireworks, and did I mention blowing things up? The first time I brought the Weatherman to a family 4th of July celebration I remember he didn't really know what to do with himself. Let's just say the blowing things up and setting things on fire was not part of his family tradition. But his is fun too. Swimming and a pot luck. This year will be a good year for the kids to go back and experience a good ol' family celebration of food, fun, and fire!
Considering how much we liked to blow stuff up, it is surprising we never seriously injured each other. Aw memories!
And let's not forget Christmas! How I love our Christmas traditions! We never believed in Santa, something that we are changing with our kids because I believe in the magic and fun that Santa represents. But we did get to open all our presents on Christmas eve. We still got a stocking with smaller gifts on Christmas day, and again I never caught my parents filling the stocking, despite waking up in the middle of the night to "go to the bathroom". Other Christmas traditions include going to "look at lights" and visiting the live nativity scene that had live animals, and several other light displays, one of which portrayed the entire life of Christ. There was also the tradition of climbing into the attack and dragging down all the decorations and putting up our old artificial tree. How I loved that smell, that prickly feeling, and all the memories that would come flooding back with each decoration. The Weatherman's family did believe in Santa and opened their presents on Christmas day, and both of our families had pot luck dinners with way too much food. We have introduced the "elf on a shelf" tradition with Goober and next year maybe Bubs will get into it a bit too. It has been another tradition that we have made our own.
There are many other traditions too: Halloween costumes and riding on the back of my dad's blue pickup truck as we went from house to house. Thanksgiving at my grandparents and playing in piles of leaves after eating way too much food. Memorial day visiting graves and looking at flags. And then there are the other traditions that have nothing to do with holidays. There were so many Saturday's my dad would say "let's go feed the ducks" and we would pile into the big blue van and grab some old bread and cereal and drive to all the "secret" places where we knew from experience the Canada Geese would rest at. There was also the football games at my grandpa's house, with all of us crowded in his living room with his 51" big screen TV. And of course the pageant nights with my mom and sister, each of us with our own sheet of paper keeping track of our favorite girl's score and oo-ing and ah-ing over the gowns.
My family may not have had a lot of money, but we have so many good memories. I am so grateful to my wonderful mom and dad who showed me that marriage does not have to be perfect, but you can make a warm home full of memories. And to my siblings who taught me how to love and fight and compete and forgive. These things more than anything are the reason that I wanted to have at least 3 children: these traditions and the memories and the happiness of childhood. The friendship that I share with my four siblings and the relationship that I have with my parents now that I am an adult and parent myself. The traditions that I can pass down to my children, and experience all over again through their eyes.
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