I love traditions and celebrating with my family. Sometimes, though, it seems completely overwhelming- so much so, in fact, that it’s often easier just to do nothing at all. After all, my kids are very young. They probably won’t even notice that we didn’t celebrate!
And that’s true. They probably won’t. Just the same, it feels like a lost opportunity.
If I had chosen instead to celebrate, we would have had an opportunity to intentionally build our family culture. After all, the kind of natural cultural existence that comes from repetition and muscle memory builds whether I actively do anything or not. What if I tried to steer that natural process by celebrating, even in one small way?
And yet- planning and implementing an activity, no matter how small, does involve extra labor, time, and energy for me. Many nights I collapse into bed wondering if I will ever accomplish the things I write on my to-do list. Adding even more (and admittedly, truly unnecessary) tasks will only stretch me further.
So: how to move forward? How do we wade through our schedules and constraints and exhaustion and all of our various challenges and find a solution?
Here are the points I consider when planning a family celebration:
- Simple: Multi-faceted, themed, or complicated ideas are just not the right fit for my current schedule and lifestyle. This is a key point for me to remember- I tend to get extremely excited about new ideas and will frequently disregard very real constraints.
- Authentic: Was this activity chosen because it is “beautiful” or “on trend” or will my family and I actually enjoy the process? Does it fit with our values?
- Meaningful: What do I want to recognize about the day, event, or person we are celebrating? Does this activity highlight some kind of truth, goodness, or beauty?
I applied these guidelines when making plans to celebrate the New Year with our young children (4, 3 and 8 months).
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On New Year’s Eve:
- We will eat appetizers for dinner- fruit trays, vegetable platters, an olive bar tray, cheese, salami, shrimp cocktail, and egg rolls.
- While we eat, we will talk about what was wonderful (or possibly otherwise) from the passing year.
- After the baby goes to bed and Giggle and Wiggle are in pajamas, we will postpone the girl’s bedtime routine a little by playing their favorite board game, The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel.
- Then we will pour sparkling grape juice into special glasses, watch last year’s count down and say “Happy New Year” with snuggles and kisses.
- After the girls then go to bed, I will put the ingredients for black-eyed pea soup in the slow cooker and mix up cornbread.
On New Year’s Day:
- Breakfast will be black-eyed pea soup and cornbread.
- We will say a blessing on the upcoming year using our family Blessing Cup. I plan to use the blessing ritual given in The Blessing Cup for 2017 and consider how we might modify for 2018.
- We will talk about what kinds of things we might like to learn about, accomplish, and do as a family this year.
It’s simple– it involves uncomplicated food and prepackaged activities.
It’s authentic– our kids are exhausted by bedtime. They can stay up just a bit to recognize the event, but hopefully not enough to cause a melt down! There may be other creative ways to celebrate, but adding anything else to the evening’s schedule would not be a good fit for our family.
It’s meaningful– we recognize the beauty of the closing year and bless the year to come. Also, the appetizer meal is personally meaningful to me- my late mother served a variety of appetizers as a Christmas Eve buffet. We serve the buffet on New Year’s Eve, but it was her idea (I miss you, Mom).
I hope this framework helps you as you plan for the upcoming New Year with your family. I’d love to hear some comments from you all about your own ideas and traditions!