Of all the concessions I had to make surrounding this year’s Christmas traditions, this one nagged at me the most. The fudge the kids and I made together didn’t set right, so we didn’t have it as we decorated the tree, and that was a bummer. The top of the tree is dark, but ornamented anyway, and that’s okay. The bottom of the tree is sagging because that’s where the little munchkins can reach to put ornaments on, and that’s okay too. Everything got done a week later than I desired. Oh well. But here I was, with this grand picture of family togetherness, happy kids talking and laughing together, drinking egg nog, talking about the ornaments and who made what and when, who gave that one to us when we moved into our first home, our first baby ornaments, etc… and everything was different because one member of the family couldn’t participate the way I wanted him to.<\/p>\n

I think that as parents, we have a lot of letting go to do with our kids. As they get older, we loosen our grip a little more (against our nature to grab a stronger hold) giving them more freedoms, and maybe letting go of our expectations they didn’t meet because they either didn’t want to, or couldn’t. I didn’t cry, and I didn’t get mad. I just let go. My heart was sad because I know that with all this sensory overload and chaos in what we consider “normal” family traditions, I have a son who is going to experience it differently than we do, and because he experiences it differently, so do we, against our wishes and\/or expectations. It’s not wrong. It’s just different.<\/p>\n

This year has certainly taught me a lot about tradition. Tradition may be what has always been and following in that to keep it the same. But it’s also what you make it to be from here on out. Christmas doesn’t have to look like my childhood – and it won’t! It can’t because we don’t live in my childhood. We live here, in the present – with 3 rambunctious boys, 1 with autism. The present is different from the past. Some things may stay the same – I’ll still make fudge at Christmastime and buy egg nog. We’ll still decorate the tree and hang the homemade stockings and buy new ornaments. But\u00a0I’m learning not to care so much about the things <\/em>of tradition. As long as I have my family, and we’re together, that’s all the tradition I need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a sucker for tradition. I wore my mother’s wedding dress and veil on my wedding day and\u00a0repeated the same “traditional vows” my parents did to my husband. For every family and close friends’ birthdays, we call and sing “Happy birthday” to them over the phone, even if we see them for their birthday. (Although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,95],"yoast_head":"\n