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From what I can gather, there are two schools of thought when it comes to marriage and family. There’s the “leave and cleave” school — where two consenting adults leave their families of origin, cleave to one another and form their own new family — and there’s the “you marry the family!” school — where, upon marriage to another consenting adult, you find yourself married to their family, also.
I don’t ascribe to either of those philosophies. At least, not entirely. Even though my husband and I do, in fact, constitute a family unit, we haven’t entirely ditched our old families either. Similarly, I don’t recall actually marrying Bret’s family. (Pretty sure I would have remembered that part of the ceremony.) If anything, it feels more like we were adopted by each other’s families — at 24 and 26, respectively.
But what does that have to do with Advent, you ask? Perfectly valid question.
Advent — the time of preparation for the birth of Christ and Christmas — is the perfect time to evaluate (or reevaluate) the way that we celebrate the season. Last year (our first married Christmas) we had a “go with the flow” sort of holiday. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Up North with my in-laws and then re-celebrated two days after Christmas with my family. This year, we’re changing things up — mostly due to the fact that Bret is going to have to work for most of the holiday.
Most notably, we are going to be hosting Christmas Eve. At our house. (Commence the freakout.) This is a big step for us because both of our families have strong Christmas Eve traditions that we probably won’t be carrying into our celebration. (Mostly involving food. Because food is the number one tradition for every family and every holiday.) Instead, we’re going to make our own traditions.
For an added twist, most of the “traditions” we’re going to make this year probably won’t be traditions at all. Bret and I recently had a discussion after I read a post by Amelia about how some traditions end up being more stressful than enjoyable. With than in mind, we’ve opted to make our Christmas Eve celebration as meaningful and enjoyable as possible — with no pressure to make any new traditions. If we like how it works out, maybe we’ll do it again. If we don’t, then we won’t.
So that’s where we’re at with the whole tradition thing. Which makes me wonder, what are your traditions? How’d you make them and do you still enjoy them all?
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I love your take on Advent/Christmas traditions. You gotta figure things out the way it’ll work for you and not what “other people say.” I love how you talk about the food. I’m always amazed about how big of a deal food is with every holiday. Every year we have the same foods, follow the same recipes. We’ve tried not to but it’s weird when we don’t do it.
This is my sisters first married christmas but they didn’t really decorate although they are going out of town for Christmas. But they also aren’t really religious either. Although there apt is TINY so it’s hard to decorate even if they wanted. You newlyweds all have time to figure things out from year to year 🙂 Thanks for hopping long!
Food is the big “tradition,” I’ve decided. We’re opting to not make food a big tradition because we don’t want to be stuck eating the same food for years and years and years.
I do love Christmas decorations, though. They just make me so happy.
My family wasn’t very big or detailed on traditions growing up, so since getting married and having kids I have been really meaning to make traditions a part of our lives.
Our families are not religious at all, so the Advent/Liturgical Year aspect is something we mostly do on our own- though, once more comfortable with our traditions, I could see us inviting the less religious family/friends to a liturgical celebration- good evangelization tool.
Right now, we always host my side of the family on Christmas Eve. The hubs cooks turkey, potatoes, sides, I bake a few pies. We go to Mass, then my family comes over for dinner, we open presents from them and they open presents from us, viola. This year we are thinking of doing Mexican food for Christmas Eve though, maybe tamales?
Then, Christmas Day we always go to his side of the family. And, he actually has a mom’s side and dad’s side, so we try to fit in both- bring gifts, eat somewhere. Its actually chaotic.
Tamales for Christmas Eve sound delicious!