I declare it is now time to start thinking about the holidays. The big three-- Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Halloween:
You may already know that we take Halloween pretty seriously. We have almost always done our costumes as a family around a theme-- vampires, StarTrek, Star Wars, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan. It's been really fun for us and the discussions start early as to what to be each year. Honest to goodness, we have never forced anyone to be anything for Halloween. They just see what the rest of us are doing and each child has chosen to join in. But we are at a stand still this year. Will some of us break tradition and refuse the family theme this year? They can if they want to.
But I hope they don't.
Stay tuned to find out what Halloween 2010 will bring for us this year. I won't spoil the surprise by even telling you what's in the running.
Thanksgiving:
We're hoping to make a trip to the northwest this Thanksgiving. Abe and the kids traveled all over this summer, but I stayed home, so I'm looking forward to leaving the Wasatch Front for the first time in many many moons.
Christmas: Oh panic! Panic! Panic! Panic! One of these years I'm going to have the guts to go small for Christmas and trust that it will not destroy my children's magical memories of childhood Christmas mornings. My mother made Christmas absolutely perfect every year-- except the year I only got a new trombone case and a fleece bathrobe, when I really wanted a silk jacket. I was a MAJOR stinker and I called it a "crap Christmas". That was really horrible of me. I'm racked with remorse, but it was a major disappointment. Okay, with the exception of that one year, Mom always made Christmas morning magical. I want to recreate that for my people every year, but perhaps I've overblown in my mind just what she did. Maybe to my childish eyes it just seemed like we got everything we possibly wanted, plus more. Maybe we just didn't get anything the rest of the year so it seemed outrageous on Christmas morning. I don't know. But it was good. Really good. Really really good.
Of course my poor deprived children don't even know what they want for Christmas because I spend the whole year preaching that we already have SO much and we should be grateful for what we have. I don't dwell on wanting a lot of new things and don't encourage them to spend much energy pining away for the latest and greatest gadgets either. They don't watch commercials and they don't go to school. Consequently, they play with relatively simple toys and all Elinor can think to ask for for 4 years in a row is a locket. Which locket she always gets and always breaks and/or loses. Maybe this year I'll follow through on my idea to just fill a large box with tons of string, rolls of paper, tape, and markers. That's what they actually play with the most.
Also, at this point we have a lot of really great toys with tons of play value-- legos, wood blocks, polly pockets, dolls, tinker toys, dollhouse, games, duplos, animals, little people, balls, swords, cars, trucks, petshops. See what I mean? We already have so much! I've got to break the cycle of compulsive Christmas mornings. Help!
I welcome any advice on this topic. Seriously friends, I need advice. Please.
3 comments:
So what we did last year was give up all presents (except for a few small things from Santa, or that the girls gave to each other), and then splurge on a trip to Texas and Sea World right after Christmas. This year, we're doing the same thing, but we're putting our money towards the week in Hawaii with Mom and Dad in late January. I don't know if it'll work as well -- what are we going to do the week after Christmas now? -- but I think we are all happy with spending money on memories rather than stuff.
It's funny that you posted this today. Last night I had a dream that it was Christmas Eve, all the stores, including walmart, were closing in 5 minutes and I had bought NOTHING for my family and had no idea what to get anyone. I get this dream every year, it just came earlier this year.
My friend does the same thing Melissa does. They don't do presents, they all go on a trip. They live in Texas and they choose different destinations. She asked her children if they wanted to go back to presents and they all agreed that the family trip was more fun for them.
When yours all get old enough, you can go to the Dominican Republic and build a school over Christmas break!
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