Ping Pong Posts

It looks like Sunny and I have created a game of ping pong posts over the theme of Christmas.  Today's post is just a ramble of random Christmas memories and traditions, listed in no particular order.

Sunny mentioned the 3 gift rule.  This is honestly the first time I've heard of it. It certainly would have made life a lot simpler when I was a young parent.

I never had stockings as a kid.  That tradition showed up when I got married.

As a kid, I always wanted a tree with long needles, but my mom hated them because the vacuum wouldn't pick up the long needles.  That was a change I made while I still used real trees.

I always had a ton of string tinsel on the tree as a kid.  That's another tradition that changed when I became an adult, because the tinsel kept getting caught in the beater bar of the vacuum.  It seems that the vacuum had an outsized impact on my Christmas traditions.  At least I never bought one as a Christmas gift. :)

I definitely agree that Christmas should be about the memories.  As a kid, we always drove around town at least once to look at Christmas lights.  That's a tradition I carried on and I think my kids still do it with my grandkids.  Also, as a kid we were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  That's another tradition I carried on as a young dad.

I do have a couple of Christmas gift memories from my childhood that I'd like to share.  My mom used to let us shake the boxes.  One year in particular, she got my brothers and me ice skates.  I shook the box, and part of the blade shot through the side and I figured out what it was.  I then realized that my brothers each had a box that was about the same size and I pointed this out to them, spoiling part of the surprise.  My mom was p1$$3d at me for that one!  Another year, my brothers and I received sleeping bags.  We slept in the living room for a week afterwards.  Which brings up another story...

There was a year where I was a single dad.  1.0 had left and I hadn't yet met 2.0.  I decided to get my younger daughter her first bicycle as a Christmas gift.  I made the mistake of telling my older girl about the gift, at which point she got really upset because she wasn't getting a "big gift."  To calm her down, I promised that I'd get her something big.  I searched... and searched... and searched... for the right thing, spending hours racking my brain and browsing dozens of stores, looking for the right gift.  It had to be big, but it also had to be inexpensive because money was really tight that year.  I finally thought I had figured it out.  When I spied the sleeping bag, I remembered how much I loved getting one as a kid, and how much joy and practical use it gave me for many years to come.  Yeah, that was a mistake.  She hated it, and I still hear about it at least once a year, even though she did come to appreciate it when she had big sleepovers with her friends in following years.  I'm glad we can all laugh about it now, and I'm glad she knows I really tried.

My favorite tradition is getting Christmas ornaments for the wife, kids, sons-in-law, and grandkids.  This tradition actually started while I was married to 1.0.  One year the cat knocked over the Christmas tree, breaking dozens of expensive, hand-blown Christmas ornaments.  1.0 was wildly upset, so I bought her an ornament.  She loved it, and that's where the tradition was born.  The tradition continued after we split up, because she took most of the ornaments with her when we split up, so I had to rebuild.  That first year, I bought a bunch of unpainted ceramic ornaments and painted them with the kids.  I also bought a glass snowman ornament with a girl on each side of the snowman, representing my girls and me.  The kids loved that, cementing a tradition that's continued for decades.  This allowed me to send ornaments with my kids when they left the nest, and I've hit a point where I have more ornaments than tree space, so I have to rotate every year, though "rotate" is too formal of a term.  We just open a random box and start there, and we quit when we feel the tree looks full.

I call myself a minimalist because I don't deck out my entire house, I don't blow a ton of cash on gifts, and I don't host a huge Christmas gathering.  I'd like to clarify though that shedding the excess allows me to focus more on the aspects I enjoy.  I love my tree and the memories that come with each ornament.  I love getting new tree baubles for my family.  I very much enjoy sitting on the love seat with 2.2, watching Christmas movies one or two at a time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I look forward to spending Christmas with my younger daughter, and her new family, which includes a large family on my son-in-law's side.  It's wonderful that I've hit the point where I can primarily kick back and enjoy.  For those of you who go all out, I'm not judging.  You do what makes you happy.  I fully support it!