Traditions around the holidays

I mentioned already that we used to have very special traditions around the holidays when we went to our grandparents house.
After my husband and I got married we established new traditions as a couple.
The first mistake we made was to spend our first thanksgiving holiday as a couple with his family.
It created a lot of ‘feelings’ and after that we decided where to spend our time during the holiday seasons.
My family didn’t really do anything on Easter and they always did Christmas on Christmas Eve.
So we set it up that Easter and Christmas day would be his side of the family and Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve for my side.
It worked wonderful when we had children as I was determined to not drag them to different homes with different foods.
Good way to have sick kids and I was not going to do that to any of us.
Now that our children have grown, we still have our traditions only they have changed to adapt to the ‘grandchildren’.
We always have an Easter dinner. That is a tradition and anyone is free to join us.
We always have a big brunch on Christmas morning at some point in time we have had up to over 20 around the table.
I love to use china and pretty glasses, and we have old country rose dishes for Thanksgiving.
Then I purchased Christmas china dishes for brunch.
I love to see a beautiful table with pretty flowers and a fire in the fireplace warming the room.
Traditions for the holidays are so important.
Now that we are writing down a list of important things in our lives, what would your traditions be?
What is negotiable and what is not?
It’s important to know what you need for family and for peace in the holidays.
I am not one to over pressure our ‘grown’ children to be here for the mealtime.
They are making their own traditions and at some point in time my husband and I might be alone.
Restaurants make wonderful meals and if you choose a nicer one the meal can be a real treat.
I challenge you to figure out what your traditions are then do what you can to make that happen.
We can make our holidays full of tension or we can make them very peaceful by deciding what is most important.
It’s really a matter of choice and decisions for each family.