Traditions

Growing up I always knew what to expect on Thanksgiving weekend.

Wednesday night we'd leave "when dad gets home from work" and drive to Logan. We'd pull in the driveway at Grandpa's house and he'd be watching Lawrence Welk, or the news, and we'd all come in a drop our stuff. The old ones would sit and talk and we'd go look for the fun games (I think booby trap and checkers were the only games he owned). Dad would make us a bed out of blankets on the floor downstairs and we'd all sleep in the same room.  I think this changed the older we got. The "little kids" slept in the blanket bed on the floor and the "big kids" slept on the couch and the floor upstairs.

Thanksgiving morning we headed to the church where dad set up tables and chairs and mom went straight to work in the kitchen (after hauling in the pies). The rest of us did typical "kids in a church" stuff. Basketball, tag, hide & seek.

Friday on our way home we'd pick out a Christmas Tree from the tree store in American Fork and head home to put it up. We'd listen to Manheim and decorate like nobody's business. Dad did the lights, and we all put our homemade ornaments on the tree and watched the bubble lights boil.

I like these memories. I like that on the way home from Logan if mom & dad were thinking of not getting a tree right that second we could all whine "but we always get the tree now!" and they'd have to give in. Because....you know...tradition!

Josh's family's Thanksgiving weekend is not the same but is every single bit as predictable. While in turkey-coma with muddy buddies still ready for snacking, mom brings out the ads. Misty and Mom are die hard Black Friday shoppers. I mean it. Die. Hard. Not just the "camp out in the freezing cold all night for that 1 really great deal" die hard either. We're talking about the marathon kind of die hard. The "pack your bags cuz we aren't coming home until everybody we know has a $100 gift that we found for $2." kind of die hard. The "4am - 9pm no break for lunch" die hard. The "route the map the night before" kind of die hard.

Josh & I are not big on shopping, but somehow after paroozing the ads with Mom & Misty we had to go out the first year we were married. When you get married they should warn you that all the things you do during the first year are considered "traditions" and become mandatory for the rest of eternity. We were not die hard. Not in any sense of the term. We went out together, got some great deals on stuff and went home because we were bored of shopping. We did not wake up any earlier than we wanted to, we did not wait in line outside of any store. We did not get all of our shopping in one day.

The next year we actually stood in a line outside Circuit City because they had cheap movies. We wasted all kinds of time and I swore I'd never shop Black Friday again.

Last year I "casually glanced through the ads" and found some boots I just had to have. And I got them. And I love them. And I've never been so proud of a shoe purchase in my life. And Black Friday was wildly successful.

We've sortof combined our Thanksgiving Weekends and created a very casual, mellow, enjoyable holiday weekend. We shop and get great deals reassuring each other the whole way ("totally worth it", "I'm so glad we got that", "we just saved a ton of money!") because we both think it's a sin to spend that much money in 1 day. I can't do Black Friday shopping without him for this reason. Nobody else has the authority to tell me it was OK to spend that money, and those are word I need to hear. We wind up doing a little Redboxing, but it's not so bad because we're together and the "working breaks" are relatively short in comparison with the time we spend chillin in the car and shopping. Then we come home, put up the tree, watch a Christmas movie, listen to Christmas tunes and enjoy a cup of something warm and bask in the glow (and warmth) of the tree lights.

This year I think we have to start all new traditions because life isn't the same with a little one.

We shopped - a little. No great finds. Just some mediocre stuff. Partly because we're trying hard not to spend money....partly because the deals just didn't seem that fantastic this year.

We Redboxed - a little. It was nice to get out of the inversion and breathe real air.

I had every intention of getting Christmas put up, but somehow it didn't happen. Something about not being able to stay up until midnight if my life depended on it.....

I swore I'd do it today. Josh even brought the Christmas tree up from the garage. It's still sitting in the box in the middle of my living room floor - along with the 2 other boxes of Christmas decorations that have been out since Monday.

It seems that due to the adorable child in our midst who takes up 100% of our attention 95% of the time, we're gonna have to let parts of our "relaxed mellow enjoyable holiday weekend" go.

Unfortunately it can't be Redbox.

So beginning next year, we EITHER shop or decorate. Our carefree years of 19 hour days and doing everything we feel like are over.

It's time to start some very specific (and limited) traditions.

In the meantime, who the heck is gonna put up my tree?