One area that we were asked about during our Home Study was what family traditions we had or that we would like to do with our children, and also what the extended family thought about them. We had never really given any thought to it so this made us actually sit down and have a great discussion about traditions and the holidays. We started by making a list of the different major holidays and then started talking about what each of us did growing up and what parts of that did we want to make as our own traditions.
You would almost think this would be one of the easiest parts of the home study but surprisingly it was one of the areas that got the most resistance from our extended family. My husband was raised in a Southern Pentecostal family and I was raised in a New England Irish Catholic family. Our upbringings could not have been more different if we tried, so you can imagine our family traditions also were very different.
We have found that everyone has an opinion of what we should do with our family and how we should do our traditions. When a different holiday gathering is suggested I hear “Well Tammy, we have been doing our tradition for 40 years and we are not going to change it for you”. Well considering they started their traditions when they had their first child would it not make sense that we too would like to start our own traditions when we added children to our family?
My mother-in-law actually told me that when we wanted to do the holidays a little bit different. One holiday that we still have issues (after 12 years of marriage) with is Christmas and Christmas Eve. Now my mother-in-law likes having “her holiday traditions” she has her schedule set and is not willing to change. My husband’s side of the family does Christmas Eve a dinner that starts at 6:00 p.m. and then they open some gifts. With our new family we wanted to have some of our own Christmas Eve traditions. We wanted to add some of the things that we did with my family into some things that we enjoyed. We start off by having some finger foods for dinner; curling up watching some classic Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate. Then we always open one Christmas present on Christmas Eve and it was always Christmas PJ’s.
With my in-laws schedule so strict it is impossible to do our traditions we wanted, unless we don’t care about getting the kids to bed before midnight. So we have chosen to follow our own family traditions and it has not made me the most popular person but we are building traditions for our family.