Family Traditions

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Lake Winnipesaukee

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I was feeling nostalgic recently for the family vacations of my childhood, and wishing I could recreate some of that magic somehow. Nothing I was finding was giving me the feeling I was looking for - if I even knew exactly what I wanted. And then I realized, why not? Instead of finding a place similar to where we used to go, couldn’t I find the exact place we used to visit?

And so I did! I wasn’t exactly sure until we got there, but slowly the pieces started to piece together. Memories started lining up with what was in front of me, and sure enough I was finding myself spending the day in the same spots I was when I was nine or ten years old. It was so surreal and amazing. And then my parents joined us, and we found the same house we used to stay in. And talked about the weeks we used to spend there with my grandparents, and my uncle, and great aunt - all people who aren’t with us anymore, but who had been with us in this place. It was a small thing and it was everything.

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A Wrap on Christmas

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December and 2021 are officially over, and I think I’m still processing how I feel about that. I started the year convinced the pandemic would finally be behind us, especially since we’d all be able to get vaccines. I also started the year pregnant, which seems so far away considering the energetic baby we have now. But before I try to process the year some more, or look forward to the next one, here’s one final Christmas post summary, mostly for my memory.

Big or small, here are the things we did to celebrate Christmas this year:

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Songs We Sing

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I don’t really enjoy singing. I rarely sing hymns at church, unless it’s a song I really like. I’ve already admitted that I never do more than mouth “Happy Birthday.”

But there’s something about having tiny children that has changed that.

I’m still not sure that I enjoy it, but I definitely do it a lot. Half the time it’s because I get asked to sing a specific song. “Old McDonald! Horsey! Cow! Horsey! Duck! Cow!” Over and over again. You never realize how short and weird a song is until you’ve sung “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” a couple hundred times. But the other half of the time? They’re made up songs that have popped into my head and stuck.