Christmas Traditions

One small tradition we started a couple of years ago that I thought maybe I’d quietly back my way out of this year is the goofy little Christmas chain.

The kids already asked me about this year’s chain before December even hit the calendar.

So I coordinated and googled and pinterested (see how I made two words turn into verbs even when no one should do that?) and made a list of plans to write on the paper chains for all of the days leading up to Christmas.

Some days were easy to plan – like Mosely’s birthday and the arrival of Papaw and Grandma and the arrival of Oma and Papa Dale.

We visited a pottery shop’s open house this weekend and we’ve written letters to Uncle Danny and Aunt Beckey and we’ve eaten Cereal Sundaes for dinner and listened to Christmas music together.

And this weekend the chain said – monster cookie baking day.

So we pulled out the recipe card written in Kevin’s mom’s own handwriting and we dumped in the half dozen eggs that we picked up in our very own yard from our very own egg-producing poultry.

And we made giant monster cookies together.

After eating them with a tall glass of milk and a few friends who “happened” to pop over for a sample, we started looking through old photos on the computer.

I don’t know why.

And this lead to over an hour of laughing and watching videos and being reminded that Berg sucked his thumb until he was six and he had a red mo hawk.  That Piper stood on our kitchen table and danced.  That our kids spent a summer obsessed with Michael Jackson and his song “Bad”  Many a video of their dance moves proves this obsession to be true.  And potentially very embarrassing later in life.  That Kevin cut a watermelon open with a sword and we let the kids spend most summers unclothed and playing in water hoses in the driveway.  That Magnus was a beautiful dog.

That we’ve had a lot of years of funny funny times and sweet memories and that our kids are growing up at ridiculously alarming rates.

It’s funny how one Christmas tradition can lead to so many Christmas memories.

And I guess that’s why I’m glad we still did the plain red and green paper chain this year too.