If you follow my personal Facebook page, you have seen the "30 Days of Gratitude" posts that I've been making.
It's been interesting and introspective.
Thanksgiving's prompt was "What tradition are you grateful for?" I didn't want to take time on that day to make a long post, but I did want to be able to go into it in depth at some point.
The first Christmas that Jason and I were together, I was still living with my parents. We wanted to do something together for Christmas - just the two of us - but we each also wanted to spend time with our families. I worked December 23rd, but Jason was off. We decided to have a nice, special Christmas dinner together, exchange presents, and just have some nice, quiet time together.
I arrived at Jason's house after work. When I came into the kitchen from the garage, he had the table set, candles lit, Tori Amos Christmas carols playing in the background, and was just finishing making dinner. He had gotten ham and green bean casserole, and, I believe, mashed potatoes.
It might sound pretty simple, but it meant a lot to me. What also makes this a very special memory for me is that I had never had a boyfriend at Christmas before, and, knowing that, Jason put a lot of effort into making our first Christmas together a special one.
That was the only year that we haven't spent Christmas Eve and Day together; we had been together a little over half a year at this point and both spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our respective families. Every year since then, though, we have been together on Christmas (adding Baldur our second year). Every year we juggle spending time with both his family and mine, with the exceptions of when one side or the other might choose to travel for Christmas. (My sister lives in St. Louis and Jason's dad has family in Indiana.)
But no matter where we end up being, what we end up doing, or who we end up spending time with for Christmas proper, we always find some time - usually the day before we head out, though I think we might also have done it the day after - to have our own special, personal Christmas. We have Christmas dinner (though on one occasion it was brunch), choosing either something special that we don't eat a lot, like filet mignon, or something new. We have our presents for each other and for Baldur, and we try to find some time to just spend together and have some quiet and peace in the midst of all the dashing back and forth.
This is the tradition I am the most grateful for - the special, quiet time I share with my boys.
Please share stories about your favorite tradition, whether holiday or otherwise.