It’s Never Too Late to Start a New Family Tradition

My house is a certified disaster area. I’ve started the new year 7 pounds heavier than I did the last. My girls are gonna be little monsters today from staying up way too late last night. But you know what? That’s not going to stop me from enjoying this day with my family. While I have the usual new year’s resolutions swirling around my head (be a more patient parent, exercise, organize, craft more, etc), one is first and foremost in my mind, especially given recent tragedy in Sandy Hook. Above all, I want to really appreciate those moments, both special and ordinary, with my beloved family. So why not start a new family tradition this year?

Every year, life seems to get busier and busier, especially around the holidays. Each year, I mean to slow things down and really enjoy every minute, but no matter how hard I try, time just flies by. It’s just the nature of the season which seems to start at Halloween. Then time just whizzes by until BOOM it’s Christmas!

It happens the same every year. As Halloween nears, it’s time to think about costumes and house-decorating. In less than a month is Thanksgiving where we either travel to or host families at home. I LOVE hosting but that all takes time to plan, shop, clean and execute. Then BOOM, it’s Christmastime. Time to decorate the house and the tree. The tree comes in three stages, though: buy a real tree, put lights on it and then decorate it.

More often than I care to admit, I get stuck on the “put lights on tree” part. One year, I took too long to put the lights on it so they just started decorating it themselves with plastic bugs, lizards, snakes, etc. I actually LOVED it and was sad to have to take them down to finally put the lights on.

This year, I made a big event out of the tree decorating part. I thought, hey, it’s never too late to start a new family tradition, so I dubbed it “The Tree Decorating Party”. With our busy schedule of traveling, visiting guests, soccer practices/games and various other scheduled events, the ONLY slot we had was on a Saturday afternoon from 2pm-4pm, about 3 weeks before Christmas.

I got super excited and computer crafted some invitations and slipped them under the girls’ doors the night before. The girls were SO excited when they actually saw their invitations in the morning. Big Sis got up first and walked right over hers several times until we finally had to drop a hint. Once she read it, she excitedly ran into  Little Sis’ room to wake her up and share the good news. Little Sis, still wiping the sleep out of her eyes, smiled and quickly got busy picking out her “fanciest party dress” along with Big Sis. I have to say that this was definitely my favorite part.

So, without further ado, here are some special moments from the First Annual Tree Decorating Party. We all enjoyed spending this special time together.

The girls seemed to love every bit of it, from the tea-type lunch and snacks and treats to the much awaited tree-decorating. Even though life was busy (Little Sis came back from Soccer practice 10 minutes before the start of our party and we had to take off for Disney on ice about 30 minutes AFTER the party), we were somehow able to take a sweet break from the business of the holidays and enjoy the special family time.

Served for lunch and snacks were:

1. Applegate Ham and Cheese Santa Sandwiches on Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread
2. Papa Spuds’ Carrot sticks w/ ranch dressing
3. Cuties (oranges)
4. Annie’s Organic’s Mac and Cheese
5. Pringle’s White Chocolate Peppermint Potato Chips: weird, yes, but had to give them a try!
6. Snowflake sugar cookies w/ icing made from organic powdered sugar from Trader Joe’s (apparently, organic powdered sugar isn’t as white as snow!)
7. Hi Hat Cupcakes

Martha Stewart’s Hi-Hat Cupcakes made for a very special treat. They were delicious, but they took some Martha-style effort!! I at least saved a little time by using some Homemade Magic Shell I already had on hand, instead of using Martha’s. I’m sure hers is quite tasty, too. Feel free to leave me a comment if you’d like more details on anything you see pictured above.

And finally, the actual tree decorating part!

Then just like that, there appeared the very first present under the tree. It was from Little Sis to her Big Sis, whom she loves so dearly. I had to peek. It was a Polly Pocket. So sweet and unexpected.

Wishing you all the happiest of New Years!! Hope your 2013 is filled with nothing but lots of joy, love, fun and lots of good food!

Can’t wait to do it again and maybe even start a new family tradition next year!

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Christine, aka happyvballgirl : )

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