The holidays make me nostalgic. I yearn to be a kid again, sneaking around with my siblings trying to find the hidden Christmas presents. I yearn for the giddiness of the last half day of school before holiday break. I yearn for the mornings where I could wake up with my siblings and parents and spend the entire day in one house, from opening presents Christmas morning to a fantastic feast on Christmas night.
Don’t get me wrong—I wouldn’t trade my current family situation for the world, but there is a sadness that comes along with growing up and moving on. Everyone gets older, they start their own families, they sometimes move hours or even continents away, and you know nothing will ever go back to how it was.
In this day in age, you might eat out a restaurant on Thanksgiving or you might have a Friendsgiving, surrounded by friends instead of family. For Christmas, you might alternate between having dinner at different family members’ homes, or Christmas might be spread over two to three days depending on how far away relatives are. And you might have to explain to your little ones that not only did Santa bring them presents to their own house, but he also made a pit stop at a few other relatives to leave them something there as well.
This year, we went out to eat the night before Thanksgiving, just as we’ve done the past several years. It was just my husband and I, our daughter, and my parents, and none of my siblings could come. It broke my heart. Now that I’m raising a child of my own, I don’t want her to think of Thanksgiving as just another night out to eat. I want her to be giddy with excitement as I was as a kid, smelling the turkey wafting through the air and unable to keep her little hands away from the pumpkin pie. Most importantly, I want her to know the meaning of family.
No matter where or how you spend your holidays, family and friends are the most important part. They are the heart of the holidays. As silly as it may sound, I want her to grow up around a table, saying what she’s thankful for and listening to us tell her that we’re thankful each and every day for her. I want her to someday have siblings that she can run to the Christmas tree with on Christmas morning and stare in awe at the miraculous arrival of presents underneath the tree. I want her to have the childhood I still yearn for when the holiday season arrives.
But now I know, as a parent myself, I get to play the ultimate role in recreating the magic of the holidays for her. We’ll make our own new traditions with friends and family, and she’ll know what the heart of the holidays is all about (even if it means learning how to cook a turkey next year!)
What traditions from your childhood holidays do you miss most? Are there any you are carrying on with your own family?
