“The best present we can give our kids, is to simply BE PRESENT.”

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With the holidays comes a slew of traditions. Traditions from every corner of every side of every person in our families. Some traditions are widespread amongst most of us, like Christmas trees, gingerbread houses, and hanging the stockings by the fireplace. Others are more personal to our own families, like baking a specific cookie on a carefully chosen day, taking an annual shopping trip followed by lunch at the same restaurant every year, or re-gifting a 15 year old fruitcake in a tin to the person in the family that you wish to annoy most this year (yes, my family does this. The fruitcake is hard as a rock, never has molded which is VERY CONCERNING, and is packed in a fugly Christmas tin from 1995. It is an amazing tradition that shall live on. I REGRET NOTHING.)

Traditions keep the spirit of the holidays alive. They help us to remember past times with our families and friends and then pass on those legacies to our own children. Without them, our excitement, cheer, and sweet memories of loved ones would slowly begin to fade. I revel in the many traditions that our family has and look forward to bringing them back year after year. Well….MOST of them anyway.

Sometimes, it is OK to let a tradition go. I wish this for you just as much as I wish this for me. Sometimes, YOU NEED TO LET IT GO. Maybe the tradition of making figgy pudding using great great great great great Grandma Betty Lou’s recipe is no longer relevant to our day and age. I mean, where am I even going to find 7/8 cup of whale blubber nowadays ANYWAY?! That shit is nasty, be honest. NO ONE makes figgy pudding anymore. Trash that tradition, immediately.

I personally feel that it is of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE for every family to keep the traditions that bring happiness and joy to their homes and purge the ones that become monotone, stressful, stale, or do not enhance the bonding of their families. I am a solid, firm believer that, at some point in everyone’s lives, the time will come to ditch the old and start fresh with NEW traditions for your family. Don’t you deserve that? The chance to start something NEW for your spouse, kids, fur babies, or even just for yourself? Think of how fun that is for your kids, sending them off with a new legacy that they can choose to pass on to their own kids if they wish? EVERYONE deserves the chance to create memories of their own with the ones they love most. 

Now, I am not saying to ditch every tradition you have and throw great Grammy’s Christmas dinner out the door. Poor Grammy deserves some love, too. But what if Grammy’s very elaborate, very stressful, very irritating Christmas tradition is scheduled for 9 am on Christmas morning this year? Is that what YOU want? To wake the kids up early, rush through opening gifts, immediately rip those brand new gifts out of their tiny, happy fingers, dry the tears that were sprung by your gift removal, shower, get ready, eat a quick snack, and rush out the door to get to Grammy’s just in time for Uncle Mark to start a fight with Aunt Rita in the middle of the living room about who burnt the bottom of the hash brown casserole? All while the kids run around like rabid animals and barely escape sliding in to Grammy’s precious curio cabinet full of ancient breakables? If the answer is yes, then that is GREAT! That is YOUR tradition for you to keep and cherish and be happy in. I won’t judge you for that, either. But for ME, it’s NOT. That is not my idea of a relaxing, family bonding Christmas. And because of this opinion, your great Grammy surely likes you better than mine likes me. Even though it may not be the popular opinion of ole Grammy and you might SERIOUSLY piss off Aunt Rita, sometimes we just have to say NO. NO! NO NO NO NO NO! No to the stress and the irritation and the hustle and bustle that we already experience every day of the year. NO.

Sure, I used to go to Grammy’s dinner every single year. And make that figgy pudding on the first Saturday of December. And travel to 900 different locations all within the 15 short hours we have on Christmas day in an effort to see every extended family member that we have. But, then something changed. WE HAD KIDS. And that’s a pretty damn big mental change if you ask me. With that mental change came a want and a desire for holidays that were different than before. Have you ever had to bundle your tiny kids up and load them in and out of a car seat every few hours all flippin’ day, all while they scream at your face from over-exhaustion? It is the ANTI-RELAXATION to put it mildly. It makes for a very stressful holiday for the parents.

My new idea of the PERFECT CHRISTMAS DAY now goes something like this: I wake to the sound of the children’s little pitter patter of feet running down the hallway. They jump on my bed and shake the ever-loving crap out of me until I slowly rise from MY OWN super soft, super cloud like Tempurpedic ergonomic bed that lives in MY OWN bedroom. Then, we scurry down the stairs and try to hold the kids off of the presents just long enough for me to make a nice, steamy hot pot o’ joe. Then, the kids are free to rip the shit out of the boxes and bags that hold all of the presents that have been tempting them under the tree for days  errrr weeks. Yea, weeks, that’s right. I’ve had those presents purchased and wrapped for WEEKS! (ha..ha…HAHAHAHAHAHA). I then take my super comfy, robed and slippered body over to the couch with my spiked cup o’ joe and sit there. I sit there. I JUST SIT THERE next to my sweet husband and stare at these two beautiful beings that I get the pleasure to call mine. I watch them as their excitement overflows out of their bodies and I can’t help but let it soak in to mine. THEN WE PLAY. We play with all of the new gifts that I   , errrrr SANTA, brought. We bond with them by playing pretend and taking the time to really enjoy each gift. Then we eat our homemade cinnamon rolls that I got the pleasure of making. You see, with the careers that my husband and I are lucky enough to have, our day to day life is NUTS and our hours are truly bizarre. When I am home, my husband is not. When he gets home, I immediately leave. We are kind of like glorified single parents in a way. It makes it almost impossible for us to ever have family dinner together, let alone have me make any food from scratch whatsoever. Our daily meals consist of mac n’ cheese and chicken nuggets. If it is frozen, we probably cook it. So Christmas day is one of the ONLY days of the year that I truly get to enjoy making some delicious food from scratch and then eating with my family of four. All of them. At the same time. At the table. It’s GLORIOUS. So that’s what I want to do, make food. I want to make a delicious breakfast and eat it until we are stuffed. I want to stay in my robe ALL FREAKING DAY as I prepare a yummy homemade dinner. I want to sip on mimosas and watch the kids play and take a nap and choose whether or not I even bother putting pants on or not. I want to eat dinner together with my family (THREE MEALS TOGETHER IN ONE DAY IS UNHEARD OF). And I want to watch Christmas movies on the couch, all four of us snuggled up under the fluffiest blanket we can find, noshing on air-popped popcorn. I want both my husband and I to enjoy a nice adult beverage TOGETHER at the same time because we will not have to worry about one of us driving to the next location. I want to go to bed whenever we are tired, even if that means 6:00 pm. I want to be RELAXED.

And you see, none of that coincides great Grammy’s 9:00 a.m. dinner. If you really think about it, despite being surrounded by family, almost NONE of it would be quality bonding time for our family of four. The kids would be out running around while my husband and I split up to make sure we chat with everyone in attendance so no one gets pissed. This means that Christmas day will come and go without any of us ever being TRULY connected. Our family only has this ONE DAY to be together, and I want to make it really count. So this year, we are saying NO.

This all may seem very insensitive to you, and I get that. But let me explain: we aren’t saying no to ANY OTHER DAY. Literally every day of the entire Christmas break can be dedicated to seeing family members, including sweet old Grammy. We will travel the lands to celebrate Christmas with everyone that wants us in attendance. We will keep the kids up late, let them skip naps, and pump them full of sugar to keep them energized for all of the stops. We will be jolly and merry and have a hell of a good time everywhere we go. We will take the time to REALLY enjoy everyone’s company. We will even make the flippin’ figgy pudding if you want us to. But NOT ON CHRISTMAS DAY. That is our very own, new family tradition. CHRISTMAS DAY BELONGS TO US. We will be sure to spend time with our families, old and young. It might be the day before, or a few days after, but why is that such an issue? If we don’t see our families on Christmas day, does that mean we love them any less the day after? No. HELL NO. That makes no sense. We will spend time with our families in the near vicinity of Christmas day. We are not heathens, and this does not make us bad people. Wanting to start our own family traditions does not make us evil. Every family deserves the right to choose their traditions.

My husband and I are both comfortable with this decision, too. This was a joint conversation, actively had by the both of us (and for those of you that know my husband, that means something. He is normally so innately quiet). We both know that it may sting a little at first, but over time we won’t even have to think twice about it. It is our new tradition. Home on Christmas is our tradition.

When my kids are older, I want them to think back on Christmas day and remember how it was FUN, and STRESS-FREE, and MAGICAL, and unlike any other day of the year.  I want them to remember that mom actually DOES know how to cook. That mom and dad CAN be in the house at the same time for more than an hour or two. I want them to remember that they had ALL FREAKING DAY to do nothing but play with their toys and watch movies with no obligations or schedules. I want them to remember that it was the ONE DAY of the year that our family shut off the phone, shut the blinds, and just TRULY spent time enjoying each other’s company. I WANT THEM TO REMEMBER THAT, AMONGST ALL OF THEIR PRESENTS, THAT WE WERE PRESENT. 

I wish you and your family the same. I hope that you get the chance to choose the traditions that best fit your family, whatever they may be, and the comfort to let go of the one’s that don’t.

On Christmas day, I want to be PRESENT. And I hope that you can be, too.