Holidays

Blog post #2 of 365

I want to be perfectly clear that I am a Christian, a believer in Christ and His teachings. I am also all about my family. I love hanging out with them.

The important holidays for me are Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas because they are all about family and kid time. Our family has begun celebrating most of these holidays on an off day. (I wonder why more people don’t do it this way.) Celebrating on an off day gives every family a chance to celebrate twice as much without the guilt other people may have suffer at having to decide which family to spend time with (mine or the spouse.) These are my thoughts on the holidays.

Easter is the first of the big ones. Easter is a sign of new beginnings. Christ died and was resurrected for us. He lives on for us. Our family doesn’t get all churchy for any holiday but we do celebrate together. We pray before we eat and express our gratitude for the opportunity to be together and for the delicious food. We don’t have a set weekend to celebrate because Easter is a big floater. I always forget the calculations but it falls someplace between March and late April. We meet as a family for my Mom’s traditional (orange/ginger) ham but have gotten a little more relaxed going for more of a picnic fare than a stuffy sit down type meal. We hide Easter eggs (the plastic kind filled with candies or coins) and have a hunt for the little ones. There are always eggs hidden on humans so everyone is a part of the hunt! There is usually lots of laughter and hints given too. By the end of the day the driveway is usually covered in sidewalk chalk art. The beauty of not celebrating Easter on the actual holiday is in knowing I can go to church Easter morning and not have to cook before I leave or worry about rushing here or there afterward. I’m not really sure what my other family members do on the actual holiday but I hope they are spending it forming their own traditions or spending time with more of their family.

Halloween is a big one for me. I love the decorations, the costumes and the idea of being someone else for the night. Who doesn’t love getting dressing up, hiding behind a mask, putting on makeup or just watching everyone else get all dressed up? Our church has a chili cook off the weekend before Halloween and they do a trunk or treat for the kids. Families there often theme up like the year one dad was the yellow brick road, his daughter was Dorothy and mom was the good witch. On Halloween I usually stay at home and pass out candy. I love the look on their faces when you tell a little kid they are cute, pretty, spooky or whatever. Yes, I understand that some Christians are not into celebrating all hallows eve but I enjoy the costumes too much to let the pagan roots of any holiday get to me. I also believe it is important to respect the dead. I haven’t established any family celebration yet but I hope that changes when my grandkids get a little older.

Thanksgiving rocks in my book. A day dedicated to giving thanks. I know the roots here too but I can’t help what the early settlers did when they arrived to the new world. The idea that the natives helped the newcomers survive that first harsh winter is awesome. Thinking the natives may have sat together and shared a meal together with the interlopers they had helped survive is very cool. I'm sure after the new settlers started to take over more and more of their property they quit thinking of them as new neighbors and maybe some wished they had never shared their survival tips. Lands were stolen and the “white man” was horrible to the natives but I can’t change any of that. I can choose to celebrate gratitude and feast with my family. We celebrate Thanksgiving the weekend before Thanksgiving. It gives my brother a chance to go off with his wife’s family to play on dirt bikes and deep fry turkeys in the cold. We have a traditional fare of turkey, stuffing, potatoes & gravy, and all of the trimmings. I make the main dishes and farm out the rest. Every year we also give a prayer of thanks and bless the food. As usual when we get together our family eats well, plays some and laughs a lot. After we eat we figure out when we can meet for Christmas. Coordinating everyone fro Christmas isn’t always easy but we usually manage to get mostly everyone together.

I believe in celebrating the birth of Christ, His life His sacrifices and his death. Every year I try really hard in the middle of all of the commercialism to remember the reason for the season. I always have a crèche up somewhere and sometimes more than one which helps me try to keep Him front and center in the celebration. I decorate sometime between Thanksgiving and the first week of December. Most of my decorations are indoors and because our house is tiny it only takes a little bit is very festive. Christmas is a time of love and family. Our family always spend one afternoon or evening together at my brother’s house. He puts up a ton of decorations. In truth checking out the decorations every year is well worth the drive to Anaheim. I get the bonus of hanging out with my family. Everything is always beautiful. I know my brother puts in a lot of hard work over a few weekends to pull it all together and I appreciate all of the effort he puts in! We always have sandwiches, chips & dips, sides and sweets. While there we exchange gifts with everyone we won’t actually see for Christmas. While there the focus really is on the little ones. They are the best entertainment. Christmas for me is a kid holiday. Watching their faces light up as they check out the decorations and open gifts is priceless. Like Thanksgiving and Easter we gather early which gives everyone the ability to have more family time with other family members. This has become even more important to me since my own children have begun to marry and have to figure a way to make their own Christmas Eve and Christmas day traditions and see their in laws too.

At every holiday gathering I take a ton of photos. Admittedly sometimes people might get annoyed at the number of photos but I don't usually pose anyone. I take many candid shots and make sure I get at least one photo of everyone there. I like to remember every gathering and I share the photos. One day the kids will look at all of the photos and try to remember this holiday or that. They will see how they looked and who was there. It reminds us how fun it was to get together. 

I really love the holidays. Okay I really love most of the holidays.