Traditions

I love traditions. In fact just saying the word out loud makes me want to start singing the song…….. “Tradition! Tradition!” don’t you just feel the power of the word when you say it out loud. Okay maybe not for you but for me it is definitely an energizer. I think this time of year is when we see and hear of a lot of traditions. One of my earliest memories growing up was our Christmas morning tradition. First, we couldn’t get up before 7:00 a.m. and secondly, no one was allowed to go out in the family room without first getting Mom and Dad up. Of course Dad always had to shower before we went out into the family room; I think he just liked to see us agonize just a bit longer as if not being able to sleep all night wasn’t enough!! But that was part of the tradition. Roast beef and mash potatoes and gravy was our every Sunday meal tradition. This of course was in the days before cholesterol was invented. Cholesterol took the tradition out of our Sunday meal!! Moving forward many years I started a Christmas tradition with the kids Christmas presents. I never put their names on their gifts, well not in the traditionally manner. One year each gift under the tree had a puzzle piece. They were given a clue as to their puzzle then they had to find all the gifts with the correct puzzle piece and put the puzzle together. Other years their gift tags were a certain color or a reindeer; they never know what was what until Christmas day. It made it harder to figure out which gift belonged to whom; although I was in no way delusional as I’m sure there was plenty peaking going on!! It is harder now to have some of those traditions as we are separated by many miles but the memories of those moments are still there and for that I’m grateful. Another tradition I love although I’m not a part of it per say I love it nonetheless. Each year on Jim’s birthday Kimberly calls him at midnight and on her birthday he calls her at midnight! This means that Kimberly has to get up at 2:00 a.m. to make the call, Jim is lucky in that he just has to stay up until 10:00 p.m. I’m not even sure how or when this tradition got started but their tradition of being the first person to wish the other Happy Birthday is the greatest!!

Birthday Card: $3.59
Birthday Dinner: $60.00
Birthday Calls at Midnight: Priceless!!