Traditions I Can't/Won't Abandon

 It's always just us for Christmas, and I'm starting to finally appreciate it. Neither R. or I have parents. R.'s siblings always celebrate Christmas with their spouses extended family. My half siblings are much older and are not close by, so they also celebrate Christmas on their own.All our friends also have big Christmas gatherings with their extended families.At first it bothered me. I felt left out or that I was missing something. I have always not completely "FIT IN" but now I understand it and have peace.
If you have huge glorious gatherings with extended family or friends then I am so happy for you and I hope you know how blessed you are.
But, we are blessed too! We will enjoy a lovely Christmas Eve service tonight with our family. We will praise and worship the birth of our king together. We will read Luke 2 together. We will prepare cookies in the oven and snuggle a bit before bed. We will awake with gifts and celebrations of joy in "THE GIFT" from above. We will stay in our pajamas till noon. We will have a simple dinner. But most importantly we won't get lost! We won't be lost in the busy-ness of a holiday. We are not frantically shopping, stressed out cleaning or perfectly preparing a meal of great design. We are not running from one household to the next making sure to see everyone in one day.
I pray that as we all enjoy our different celebrations of Christmas that we all make sure to not get lost. Enjoy and celebrate "God's Gift" and may you all be as blessed as we are!!! - copied post from a friend's Facebook status update

Sometimes, I've been a little jealous of those families. They have the freedom to relax or go on a vacation or invite friends over. They have freedom. They aren't bound by tradition so they can do whatever they'd like to do. When the holidays come around they can choose their plans for the day.

Let's face it, sometimes there's strained relationships in families and it's easier to run away and hide. Maybe not hide, but just avoid the issues, we can make our own plans. Or maybe we would just like to spend the day passing out coats to the homeless, or go hiking the Appalachian. We don't necessarily want to avoid, just do something different.

But what about those traditions? What about the, "We always go there on Christmas Day" statements?

I looked at a friend's Thanksgiving pictures this year of her family with another family all dressed up like pilgrims and Indians. There was no fudging on the outfits, it was the real deal with the food fixins' to match. I was really jealous. There was no way I could pull that off in my family but I thought it would be so fun.

But when I saw this picture, I was reminded of why I love our traditions too. This is the first real belly laugh that I've seen from Nana in two years., since her husband of fifty-one years passed away.

What joy it is to be in a huge crazy family with all these traditions! Without the awkward, uncomfortable strained relationships, we wouldn't get to experience so much confession, repentance and forgiveness.... and yes, love.

My family won't be dressing like Pilgrims next year, but we will be meeting with lots of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and as many cousins as our family can produce. There will be turkey, dressing, and every  kind of pie served. But there will also be lots of love poured out. Easter will have all the cousins meeting together to see if they can beat Aunt Anna to the prize egg. Christmas will be Nana's yard filled with children on their new bikes, throwing new balls and staining the knees of their new clothes.

And their will be more pictures like this...examples of God's love poured out on us. Love, forgiveness, strained relationships, joy, friendship, and reconciliation.

There will be hugs given freely with hearts full of love, tears shared over all of our losses, and joys multiplied because of our Gracious Heavenly Father who bestows Love on us all.






So I probably will never go on an exotic vacation over Christmas break or donate the season to feeding the homeless, but I will know that God gave me this wonderful family. I can't wait to continue sharing holidays, making more memories and cooking up the same pork roast at New Year's Day. I'll know that when one of the sisters says, "When the family gets together, it's just too precious of a thing to miss. I want to be here," she means it as much as I do.

And I'll truly enjoy my friends' stories and pictures of whatever it is that God is allowing them to do.