By: twainausten
All about you, homeschool mama, Homeschool, ,

How to Build Your Own Christmas Traditions

Create your own homeschool Christmas traditions.

Choose a little from your family, from your partner’s family, then leave what you don’t prefer and make your own family traditions.

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One Christmas I asked, Who wants turkey for Christmas?

Nobody.

Huh, I kinda like a turkey with stuffing.

But since we do turkey at Thanksgiving, we can try something different at Christmas.

Everyone prefers beef. We are Alberta-born and raised, so a thick cut of red meat satisfies the taste buds: a prime rib all fancy with those fancy, frilly tips makes it extra special.

Just like the turkey tradition, it took me years to accept that I don’t much enjoy loading batteries and building toys, peeling potatoes, and chopping veggies on Christmas day.

For Christmas, I want to sit back, relax and listen, watch, and soak up the atmosphere. I can create my own traditions.

So I serve Christmas dinner on Christmas eve.

Christmas is for leftovers, the well-cured, flavor-dense leftovers of a roast beef Sunday dinner, roast tomatoes, sautéed Brussel sprouts, and pomegranate goat cheese salad, garlic mashed potatoes, and Yorkshire puddings.

This day there’s time to make a chocolate yule log and add a decanted bottle of Chilean Malbec.

After the evening’s repast, there’s peaceful slumber.

We have no choice but enjoy a deep winter’s sleep, all snuggled in bed, with sugar plum fairies dancing in our head, because the carb overload has put us into hypoglycemic heaven.

Hannah Madelyn Rachel Zachary with their christmas stockings

Ignore the cultural materialism messages.

I continue to hear messages, spoken or not, that I could always do more at Christmas.

I hear…

  • Your kids won’t feel loved unless you spend more than you can afford.
  • Unless your freezer’s full of dozens of goodies, your guests won’t know they’re important–cause we all know we don’t get enough treats at Christmas.
  • If you haven’t decorated your Christmas tree Martha-style, no paper angels, broken decorations & only the front half accessorized, your tree doesn’t cut it! I prefer a simple Christmas.
  • You haven’t left a fifty dollar bill for every service person you know: your mailman, hairstylist and piano teacher? You must be Scrooge.

Watching a Christmas commercial on cars, I tell my husband, “That’s what I got you for Christmas”…pointing to the Hyundai. (Or apparently, other people are buying cars for Christmas?)

What I actually bought my husband was something that he needed, something that he even asked for (perish the thought). Anyways, we love our Subaru.

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my home in the Kootenays

Let Christmas giving teach us what is true.

This year has shown us that every day isn’t Christmas morning.

Every day isn’t unwrapping gift after gift. The world can surprise us.

Very challenging scenarios might play out under the tree of our lives.

We can still be thankful for the things we do have, for those we do have, for the Someone that really does love us, that there’s Someone’s looking out for us.

We can learn to give the very best gifts of kindness, tenderheartedness, even forgiveness. Then the magic of connection and Christmas can continue every day.

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