Swing of the Holidays

The story-telling has begun. This seems to be the time of year that we put aside all our normal routine...whatever that is. We start with Thanksgiving..and then through the Holiday season..which in our family consists of Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas and New Years..we spend most of our time in the midst of various traditions and LOTS of storytelling. We started this season with Thanksgiving at my mother's house.

We reminisce, we tell ouigi board adventures, ghost stories, the older generation discuss the pros and cons of large family life (many of my aunts and uncles come from families of 7 or more) and politics seem to be fair game to all. Cody says our story-telling is more like flat-out lying. We like to call them "fish-tales". I remind him we all like to out-do eachother in our ability to tell a good story...and that when topics become serious, the "stories" stop...and everyone feels free to give you an honest opinion. Opinions are free, wanted or not.

We jump into the traditions of our small Lutheran congregation.. We prepare for advent service homilies, sermons, cantoring, acolyting, Christmas programs, and fellowship.

Food drives, time to listen to those who are grieving, helping relieve the stress of underworking families. This becomes the priority in our lives for the next month. It is a reminder that we should live this way more often.

Finally, our traditions at home. Austen insisted we could not decorate our tree this year until Brian came home. Brian made a trip to help us decorate the tree. I believe he decorated most of it himself while the other boys ate dinner and played Fantastic Contraption. Somehow I don't think that was the original plan. We ate quesadillas, rice and chicken, cookies and listened to Pancho Sanchez Latin Jazz.

We buy a small tree for Brian. Let's face it, most trees are bigger than his entire apartment. We enjoy decorating his first Christmas tree with (gasp) matching colors and everything. I'm a little jealous:)

Our tree is old, our ornaments older. Many were made by the kids when they were younger. Our star is a paper-plate cut-out that Cody decorated when he was 4. It has water-damage from a flood in our neighborhood a few years ago. We clothes-pin it to our tree.

The stories, once again, abound. Brian has a great time imitating the boys behavior when they were younger. The boys start doing there imitations of dad. The story-telling has now become animated. Cody, our story-telling cynic, is right in the thick of it.