Packing Up Christmas Memories

As I was packing up the Christmas decorations this year, I had a new thought. As much as I dislike putting everything away, taking the tree down and vacuuming up the tree needles, I really enjoyed Christmas 2016. My sister and her new husband were here from out West, my husband and I have completed our little family unit and now have our second daughter, my husband had a good chunk of time off, and being on maternity leave, I was able to really prepare and do baking, crafts and find those extra special gifts and even make some of those gifts from ideas that I pinned from Pinterest (Imagine that! Actually doing what I pinned! See the Pinterest Challenge section of this website for this topic).

As I packed up the decorations, I reflected on the highlights of the holidays and forgot about the annoying task that I was facing. I remembered making my first ornaments when I was in 4 year old kindergarten, decorating the many Christmas trees in our family home when I was a young girl and the fun tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree from an actual Christmas tree farm which was located where later I would attend my middle school. I was thinking about the time my husband and I picked out our decorations when we first moved in together, and now the memories of gifting our two daughters with their own ornaments.

Why is it that we don't use this time in a more thoughtful way? We use the decorating of the house and the hunting for the perfect tree as traditions and activities to do with family, so why not assign the reminiscing with the packing away of decorations? I will make this my new tradition and I will pass it along to my girls and try to make it as important.

Family tradition has always been a really big deal for me. I had a fantastic childhood full of great memories and the majority of them are based around holiday seasons or family vacations/camping trips. While I feel it's important to maintain those traditions, I feel that it is equally important to create new ones with my new family so that, one day, they take these traditions and bring them into their new homes and introduce their spouses and family to more great memories. That's a wrap!

xo