Traditions.

I love Christmas... really I am like a big kid. Sydney also adds to my Christmas spirit because she is so enthuisiastic about Christmas... We are playing Christmas music BEFORE Thanksgiving in our house. Growing up, the Christmas season didn't "officially" arrive at our house until the day after Thanksgiving. Although every Thanksgiving dinner, Mom and Dad would discuss when the Christmas "records" could come out. Mom would always win and while the table was being cleared from our feast of Turkey, stuffing, "cranberry goop" and what not, Dad would put the records on the old turntable. I have good memories of Christmas's past... but this morning, I am just beginning to realize that Christmas Present and Christmas's yet to come will be just as exciting. In Sydney's house, her mom never put names on packages, but put a code on the gifts that indicated who they were for... so neither she nor her sister and brother's would know whose gifts were whose. We have continued this same tradition in our house as well and as the gifts begin to pile up under the tree... Jake and Micker Mackers are beginning to try and figure out the code... As I left for work this morning they were both scratching their heads, wondering who the "BIG" gift towards the back was for... cause you know... the BIGGER the gift, the better the present that is inside of it. lol.

I am all about traditions. Traditions help to make the memories special. In my formative years, Mom used to make a huge Christmas dinner that would take all day to prepare... usually the menu was porkchops and cornish game hens... Why porkchops and cornish game hens? I have no idea... but the porkchops were always so dry and I had to choke them down with a couple of glasses of water. Anyway, my mom finally revolted and decided that she would no longer spend all day in the kitchen while the family slept and relaxed. So, sometime in the mid 80's our tradition became: Homemade pizza every year. Mom would make the crusts early in the week and freeze them and then when Christmas day would roll around, she would quickly put the sauce and toppings on and Viola! The best homemade pizza you have ever tasted. (And it sure beat choking down a dried up old porkchop.) Till this day, when we go to my folks' place on Christmas... it's homemade pizza.

Each year, Sydney and I add to our list of traditions and slowly, we are creating traditions of our own... Our first OFFICIAL "were in a fight" fight after we were married occured in the isles of Walmart as we determined whether there would be fat colorful lights or tiny colorful lights on the tree. Also, my family used to have a star on the top of the tree and her family had an angel. It was the collision of two worlds... and it was not pretty. The only thing we could agree on was an angel that we found for the top of the tree. In the end, neither of us got our way... we have white lights on our Christmas tree because we would both rather go with something else rather than give in to the other person. But we are still married, so: no blood, no foul. I think that if you can make it through the combining of traditions... you will be married for life. :)

I have mellowed since then, and if we were to have the same "discussion" I would probably say... "That's fine... little colored lights on the tree are fine Sydney." Funny how as you get older, you gain perspective.

ANYWAY... this whole long story to sum up the fact that I love tradition.