Holiday Traditions

It seems that at every meeting or get together I'm attending the last few weeks the ice breaker has to do with holiday traditions.

Since our family is relatively new, it's hard to come up with a tradition we have. How many years do you have to do something before it's a tradition? This will be our 3rd Christmas since we've been married. Random fact: each one has been in a different state. Our first one was a frenzy of trying to please both families as newlyweds and we ended up in the car most of Christmas. The second one we had an 18 day old baby which consumed us. This year Hubby will be gone.

When I was growing up, we didn't have traditions. We had the whole day planned. The presents would change, but everything else was predictable. I loved it. It was comforting to know exactly what would happen when. Perhaps my controlling tendencies emerged earlier than I thought . . .

Our schedule:
Christmas Eve 5 pm: Family church service
Post church: Put on jammies, watch Miracle on 34th Street - the old version from the 30s - and eat snacks for dinner
Post movie: Get all dressed up in the nice clothes again, take family pictures and I would open one gift
11 pm: Candlelit church service
Christmas morning: Open gifts, read Luke and have crepes for breakfast (which my dad made while we were cleaning up the wrapping paper). I would then get myself all packed up and either be driven (or drive myself once I was 16) to my biological father's family for Christmas with them.

I would love to keep a lot of it the same for The Bear . . . except the driving for 3-4 hours every Christmas day. I love the idea of staying in jammies and hanging out as a family. My aunt's family all has to stay in pjs all day and no one can leave. Others (boyfriends/friends/family) can come over, but not until after noon and they must be in jammies too. I would love to have that family feeling.

How practical is all of this with Hubby in the Navy? Who knows. He's missing at least this year's festivities. I feel that with so much change in The Bear's (and our) lives having little things like this that are predictable is that much more important. It's nice to be reassured that no matter what Susan will believe just in time for Santa.