Memory Making 101

Christmas is officially here.  Every year it starts off in the last weekend of November.  We are invited to a Christmas breakfast (yes, Santa is there!) where we enjoy the most delicious brunch and then the kids get a gift (which is the highlight of the morning!).  The adults then hang out for way longer than the kids like (they just want to go home and play with their new toys).  However, now the cousins hang out together and enjoy one another so much, too, so they also don't want to go home (at least the older cousins).  When I look around the room, there are always tables of 4, 6, 8, maybe even 10, but our's is always the largest at 20!

After we've dragged the kids away, there is no stopping there.  The Christmas fun must continue.  Some years, as a family, we've gone on to cut a tree, but this year we went the more traditional method, at picked one up at IKEA!  They are pretty cheap and usually perfectly shaped, so off we went.

We walked into the lot and within seconds each child had picked their own....very hard to decide which child gets to pick which tree, but one of my kids had been very disappointed last year when we didn't pick his, so I whispered to my husband, "Can we go with his this year?"  "Sure."  So we picked his tree and quickly got home and put the tree in the tree stand.  So help me, this skinny tree, when it was all wrapped up, turned into the biggest, widest, fattest, best tree we've ever had.  It looks like we paid a fortune for it, when we did not!

But, the fun still didn't end.  Traditions are traditions.  Christmas music was on (thank you Spotify) pretty much all day.  Popcorn was made for stringing the tree.  Christmas decorations went on the tree nearly instantly.  Lights went up all over the place.  Christmas smells, sounds, and tastes went on all day.

To top it off, my husband allowed for a big treat - Chinese food.  So went and ordered enough for the whole family which was gobbled up within minutes.  I couldn't believe we were all able to eat again after the morning, but it turns out it was many hours later and apparently we were starving.

What I noticed in all of this was how if we had taken one thing out of the day, something would have been missing in their minds.  Traditions.  You have to love 'em and hate 'em.  The kids all have memories based on certain songs we used to play when they were kids.  They have certain meals associated with certain people.  They have the order of that November Sunday tradition etched in their minds, right down to the last minute.  That's the great thing and the worst thing.  If we miss something, their world falls apart!  However, these are the things of childhood.  I absolutely love etching traditions in their minds, creating memories.  These are the things that families create together.  It bonds us together somehow.  And, what I love, is that only my kids will have the memories I've given them.  It makes our family even tighter. 

When one of my kids found out that another brother couldn't get work off that night, she went into double overdrive trying to help him find a replacement for his shift.  All the other siblings started suggesting names of people.  They tried so many different names....how could he miss the first day of Christmas?!  My other daughter booked it off weeks in advance.  She wasn't missing this day.  They love this memory most of all.  But he couldn't find anyone, so late in the afternoon, off he went.  A small piece of the family wasn't around and he was missed...

I think what I've noticed, too, is that since we've taken the whole gift pressure out, we actually love Christmas more.  We relax more, laugh more, spend more time together....it is so great.

Don't get me wrong, that first Christmas day is always filled with a few tears.  One kid always ends up bopping another one.  A toy gets broken.  A person (or two)  raises their voice.  It always happens and it threatens to destroy the peace that everyone is loving so much.  But we power through.  And I would say most people in the home go to bed with a happy sensation in their heads that is the memory of the day being seared in their minds.  I wonder if God created memories as a bank account for the times when life doesn't go so well.  It is almost like it is something you can draw on when you are feeling down.

I'm grateful to my parents for helping start that tradition at the end of November.  It begins my childrens' Christmas season, has forever seared their minds with happy memories, and has filled their little "memory bank accounts" so full that they'll never be bankrupt on those dark days that might come.  I think that is truly the definition of a good childhood.  It is hard to fathom those less fortunate who do not have such full accounts, but instead start off bankrupt before they even get a chance to fill them up.  We are so thankful.  So in awe of our very fortunate lives.  We know we are blessed.