Wow. Hello! After a hiatus of over a month, I’m finally back on the blog!
I hope y’all are enjoying the most wonderful time of the year, or as I’m sure many are feeling, the most chaotic time of the year. I’ve always heard people talk about the stress of the season, but boy do I feel it this year. Between finals, senior projects, working my other jobs, family changes, and just life in general, I’ve felt like a chicken with my head cut off.
Take this entire blog post as an example. Originally I wanted to just sit down and write a beautiful, thoughtful, perfectly crafted blog post focusing on Christmas Traditions. Why they’re important, where they come from, and what they mean to me personally. But then life happens and instead, I’m using voice text to write the majority of it while I curl my hair getting ready to go to my husband‘s holiday event. A good description of how my life feels right now, I'm remembering this tends to be how the holidays typically go. Finding pockets of time here and there to accomplish the things you both want and need to do while making the most of each moment.
But really, isn’t that what we should be doing anyway? Thoughtfully and intentionally making the most of each of the moments we're given? Perhaps the busyness is just a good reminder to start putting more thought into where we are spending our time. And for each person/family, what is most important to fit in that time is different.
I was reminded of this sentiment while listening back to one of my recent interviews with a client from Bountiful. She talked about how each year she and her husband would take a family vacation to the beach in California and a camping trip in the Utah mountains. For her, vacationing to a new spot each year wasn’t important.
“If you know you like it,” she said, “why would you ever go somewhere different?”
In contrast, I'm sure we all know plenty of people who have been bit by the travel bug and are constantly on the hunt for somewhere new.
In both scenarios, travel is important to the family, they simply choose to do it differently. Ways that best fit their style. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just what works.
For a recently married couple like me and my husband, this sentiment is everything. It’s so easy to get on social media and compare (a whole other blog post for a whole other day.) However, in the end, it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or does, I’m just looking for things my husband and I enjoy that work for our current style of living - a discovery process I’ve been especially trying to navigate this holiday season.
This isn’t our first Christmas together but last year, Bridger and I took a 7 day trip to Croatia in the middle of December so we didn’t have a ton of time at home doing the usual Christmas things. Seeing the holiday celebrated in another country with different traditions was beautiful and made me extra excited for this year knowing we’d be able to navigate all the different influences we have in our life to create new traditions of our own!
That’s what I think my favorite part of Christmas traditions has to be. The knowledge that everything was influenced by something or someone at some point in time.
Knowing that Bridger and I are in the prime time to begin navigating what traditions work for us and what maybe isn’t our style, it’s been fun to try a series of different things along with hearing a variety of ideas!
Earlier this week I put a question box on my Instagram story asking about family traditions people enjoyed. There were so many fun and unique ones! Here’s the list:
Keeping the star off the tree til Christmas Eve, just like the night before the Savior's birth
Breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve
Making homemade pizzas and cookies on Christmas Ever while listening to Christmas Music
Christmas movies, cinnamon rolls, Christmas picture books, and advent calendars
Matching pajamas, Christmas naps because we get up so early
Going to the lights at Christmas village
Having dinner at grandmas and reading a Christmas story and getting pajamas
Doing a puzzle
Matching PJs even as adults
Grandmas clam chowder on Christmas Eve
Birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas morning
Ordering Chinese food and watching a Christmas story
Crazy Christmas Dinner on Christmas Adam (12/13)
Including the details on this that were later DMd to me because it sounds so fun!
“Each person gets $10 and we go to the grocery store. We split up and you can choose whatever you want/are craving up to $10 (maybe $15 this year, inflation…). We check out and go home. Dinner is sharing whatever was purchased. Pickles, chips, frog eye salad, cookies, drumsticks, jalapeño poppers… 😂 for example! Like a big crazy potluck! My kids ask to do it randomly throughout the year. They love it! But it’s only for Crazy Christmas Dinner on Christmas Adam. (The day before Christmas Eve, because Adam came before Eve) 🤪”
Progressive dinner and skiing on Christmas Eve
Making candy trains
Making and sharing peppernuts - a learned tradition from a family member that sponsored a German family during WW2
So many unique traditions all from different families. I loved learning about these new ideas, and I was surprised to see how many families have similar traditions around the holidays! Reading all the submissions made me reflect on some of my favorite traditions over the years. Here are a few of my personal favs:
-Tamales
A new one to me this year, and this tradition will stay for years to come. Inspired by my husband's late grandmother, the family gets together and makes homemade tamales before Christmas. I might not be any good at wrapping the corn husk but just you wait….within the next few years I’ll be a pro
-Christmas Eve Clam Chowder
I don’t know anyone outside my family who would choose clam chowder as the meal of choice for Christmas Eve but wow do I wear that tradition with pride. With my grandma's recipe, we make the soup and serve it in bread bowls with an assortment of sides.
-German Carousel Nativity Candle
The most beautiful a perfect centerpiece for both Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner the nativity candle is a beautiful tribute to the reason behind the season. I’ve already been keeping an eye out for my own!
-Santa Claus comes to town
Not a tradition I personally have experience but it's one a client talked about. Each year on Christmas Eve as the family gathered together, Santa would visit the party, sing a few songs, then head out to make his deliveries. I thought it was such a sweet idea that would be so fun to do with children!
-A birthday cake for Jesus
This was one my mom started a few years ago and I’ve loved it ever since. First, it’s a good way to celebrate the birth of Christ in a fun way. Second, who doesn’t love cake for breakfast?
Now I know there are some who even just hearing the word “traditions” is enough to make them want to run away to the far corners of the North Pole. Honestly, they’re valid. The stress and pressure of fulfilling a tradition every year can be a lot.
But I think that’s where grace has to come in. Some years things will look different than others and as was mentioned before, it’s whatever fits the season of life you’re at.
Regardless of where or when or how things happen, the feelings are typically the same. It sounds cheesy but as long as you’re with people you love (friends, family, coworkers, etc.) it truly doesn’t matter if all the details are perfectly put together.
So whether you're excited to show off your hard work of holiday preparations or you've found yourself using voice text to let out your feelings about the holidays in a blog post (#guilty) I hope you're enjoying all the little moments the holidays have to offer! May you and yours have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
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