It's funny how traditions form. Sometimes they're intentional, but often, they just come from a single event that everyone decides is the way it will be forevermore.
Christmas is prime time for traditions. We have many Christmas traditions--cutting the tree, Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies, Lindt truffles in the stockings--but one of my favorites is Sunday nights in Advent.
Advent is the season of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas in the church calendar. An Advent wreath is used in Catholic churches and many homes to mark the Sundays. It's a circle of four candles--three purple, one pink--one of which is lit for each Sunday. When I was a kid, my mom taught us a song that we sang whenever we lit one of the candles. Now I sing it with my children for our own Advent wreath lighting.
Sundays are also the day I bribe my children to do their bathroom chores with a special dessert, so during Advent, we have dinner, they go do their chores while I get dessert ready to serve, and then we light the candles, sing the song, and eat our dessert by the light of our Advent wreath.
I don't know how many of these traditions will go along with my children to their own homes and families when they're older, but I'm enjoying them now, anyway.
Do you have any favorite family traditions, Christmas or otherwise?
I've been letting go of traditions lately. No more Xmas cards for everyone I'd met, no more baking for neighbors. We still have the Advent wreath and the Nativity though. I'm also going to make quiche for my husband- his mom used to do it, them my oldest daughter would bring it with her when she'd come for Xmas. However, this year my daughter's staying home, so I need to man up and do quiche.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad sometimes that there are some things that have ended, but I can only do so much and my energy is limited. And no one else seems to care.
Sorry, this is more depressing than I tjought.
That can be the flipside of traditions, I have noticed: It feels like a failure when they don't happen for whatever reason. But yes, I actually feel like I do a lot of these things for me, and my children will take what they want from them.
DeleteWe have so many. We attempt Advent devotions around the wreath. Some years are derailed more than others. This year was one of them because of the kitchen and other chaos. But, ideally, daily we gather in the evening at the table, we sing an Advent hymn (any we know will do-- When the kids were younger we picked one each year and repeated it so the kids could memorize it). My husband reads from the Bible selections suitable for Advent (lots of Isaiah). Then we pray.
ReplyDeleteThis year begins our changing of traditions because my oldest works on Christmas Eve (when we typically open presents in the morning). Some of the kids weren't thrilled, but I reminded them of the most important tradition--- you know, "the reason for the season."
We'll see what happens in the years to come.
We had to change when we open presents last year, because our priest changed our Christmas service from the night before to early the morning of. That meant we didn't open all the presents immediately upon waking Christmas morning. Instead, everyone got to look in their stockings, and then we opened presents when we got back from church. My kids were surprisingly good about this, and I liked that it put the order of events in the proper order of importance. As you said, "the reason," which is not actually the presents.
DeleteIt seems that most single people my age don't put up a real tree, but I'm not ready to give that up and neither am I ready to use electronic candles. Beeswax for me, at least for the most part. And I'm not trendy with only white lights-- mostly multi-colored. But NEVER anything that blinks! MIL
ReplyDeleteI like multi-colored better, too. And I call blinking lights "seizure lights." NOPE.
DeleteWe have an Advent wreath with battery operated candles that we let burn in the appropriate number 24/7 and amazingly we don't have to change batteries for the whole four weeks!
ReplyDeleteWe haven't had a tree at home for years but this year I found a Charlie Brown tree 2 ft high at the thrift store and decorated it with a pale blue pillowcase for Linus' blanket and the single red ball.
Just remembered....I haven't put my small Nativity Scene out!!!
Ha. One year when I was a kid in Alaska, we cut a tree in the woods and it was so cold that all the frozen needles broke off as we were taking it to our car. We put it up anyway, hung dog toys on it, and called it our Charlie Brown tree. Although we did end up going to a tree lot to buy a tree with needles intact eventually. :-)
DeleteEvery year, I buy these beeswax candle making kits. It’s the sheets of beeswax and wicks and you just roll the wax up. It’s very easy. Then we light a candle every night at dinner, adding a new one every Sunday. We sing the first verse of O Come O Come Emmanuel. I think at one time, we intended to add a verse per week but never got around to it.
ReplyDeleteDuring dinner, we take turns reading this advent-themed Bible storybook. The only other craft we do is cut snowflakes out of coffee filters.
We do decorate a tree, which we buy at the local recovery ministry tree lot. We don’t really live near any that we could go cut down. Our goddaughter comes over to help decorate it. And then a couple of days after Christmas, my sister finds gingerbread house kits on clearance and the cousins come over and the kids make them together.
Neither of us grew up with any of this. I can’t think of anything we did every year, other than church and presents. My parents did Santa, my husband’s did not, we do not.
I grew up with late night candlelight services at church and I really miss those. Our church doesn’t do those. I was trying to find one nearby, but could only find them happening weirdly early.
Oh, I like those traditions. Especially the candles. I truly love burning candles. And your hymn choice. I have a little "Advent companion" book that has readings for the days leading up to Christmas, and the last nine days have the "O antiphons," which are the verses of "O Come O Come Emmanuel." One of my favorite hymns.
DeleteI'm very bad at traditions. We do Advent calendars (actually 25-day calendars) with a nightly treat. My husband's family is very into the dinner-and-gifts part, and my own family not so much, so the kids get to see both sides of things and realize that it's all OK, that the important part isn't in the traditions but in the love God has for us and the love we share with others. Plus, with lower expectations (this has been a theme here sometimes!) comes a greater reward for the loveliness of things happening, I think, so then if there's a failure it's not such a big deal. — Karen.
ReplyDeleteAh, I guess we do always make a trip as a family to the pasture to get the tree. That’s a pretty firm tradition. — Karen.
DeleteCombining traditions upon marriage is also always interesting.
DeleteI really love traditions, though I agree on the feeling of failure if we don't manage them. One of my most enduring traditions is being late getting everything done, haha.
ReplyDeleteMy MIL has done an Advent calendar of books for my kids. Some years this was wrapping up books from my husband's childhood. Some years it has been a purchased set. This year was a purchased Bluey set. I was actually happy about this because the stories are pretty good and the books are a good size for keeping in the diaper bag. Plus they were mostly not Christmas themed, so we will keep enjoying them all year. We did read a lot of other Christmas stories. My favorite is the collection of stories with pictures by Richard Scarry, called Animals Merry Christmas. I loved it as a child and now the worn out copy gets a lot of reading with my kiddos.