Tradition and Tension

One of the traditions I started when Haley was a baby is the ornaments. Each year, each of my kids receive a new ornament to hang on the tree. Mostly I get these from Hallmark...Haley and Jake have both had a few different series; Nathan's ornament series started the year he was one and is still going, and Kaleb has a hodge-podge because I've not found him a series. (Boys are hard!)

Although the original impulse for this tradition started inside a craft fair, where I found this adorable porcelain baby shoe ornament that was perfect for my sweet 8-month-old baby (and I wanted to replicate that feeling of finding the perfect sweet thing over and over), what kept the tradition alive was knowing that I wanted them to have their ornaments on their trees when they were adults. Like opening the boxes and hanging up the things I'd given them, year after year, could be a way of packaging up all the Christmases of their childhoods and sending them into the future with them.

This year, as I watched Jake open up his boxes of ornaments, I had this thought: what if his wife doesn't want them? I've never thought that before and it horrified me. What if my tradition causes future holiday tension? What if she (his future wife) hates random, or cutesy, what if she only wants a pretty tree, what if his ornaments feel like a mother-in-law intrusion of the worst sort?

I had to leave the family room for a minute to make my heart stop pounding and to get the blush to leave my cheeks.

I think it's interesting that I never had this thought about Haley's future husband. I think it's because, in my experience, the wife is the person who makes most of the traditions. I have a few ornaments on my tree that Beth made (they felt more valuable this year than ever), I hang up Kendell's childhood stocking, and this nativity:
which I put in my kitchen, is the thing I took from Beth's mom's house when she died in 1998. (I love it, even though everyone else thinks it's ugly.)

But for the most part, our holiday traditions are based on what I  have wanted to do. Some are things I've incorporated from my childhood (the Christmas Eve pajamas), some are things that have just happened and then stuck. But I honestly never thought about integrating my husband's traditions from his childhood into the mix.

(Cue intense wifely guilt with that realization.)

In fact, the only tradition I really even know about is his uncle Buffalo's, who always wrapped his gifts in brown paper bags. Kendell did suggest we do that, back when we were first married, and I was horrified.Horrified! My mom taught me to wrap presents the right way, which is as beautifully as possible, with pretty paper and no torn edges showing. Not a bundle of brown paper!

And there, right there: that moment is what I am getting at. My way, because I'm the wife and the mom and the maker of Christmas, is the way I wanted it. How would I have felt if my husband showed up with a hodge podge of ornaments from his childhood and he wanted to hang them on our tree? What if I hated them, what if they went against my vision of what Christmas looks like?

I'm afraid of the answer.

All of this gave me a holiday realization. Because, see, one of our not-so-awesome tradition is the Holiday Big Ugly. Sometime in December, with possibilities growing exponentially as Christmas gets closer, Kendell and I generally have a big ugly argument, the December version. I hate this and I dread it and whenever someone asks me what I want for Christmas my inner thought is always to not have a big argument. It always starts with something stupid and then feeds itself on all the tensions the holidays bring with them (the money and the planning and all the extra stuff and the pull between his family and mine), but what I didn't ever see is that maybe it also comes because Christmas doesn't feel right to him.

So much of the holidays, when you are an adult, is memory. Is reaching back to find the way it felt to have the world made magic both so your kids can experience the magic—and so that you can, too. This is why I started giving my kids ornaments to hang on their future adult Christmas trees, so that it would be easier for them to find their way back to the feeling I'd tried so hard to create for them. But I think I forgot somewhere, along the way, that my path to those memories cannot be Kendell's path. And maybe because this is the first year both of his parents are gone, but I realized I need to help him remember, too. Help him feel what it felt like for him.

Maybe wrap a gift in a brown paper bag even if it doesn't match my color-coordinated wrapping paper and ribbon.

And maybe because I had that realization, this Christmas was a good one. I tried extra hard to keep things smooth, to disappate the tension, to shop earlier and plan better. Or maybe it was just Beth looking out for us. But we had no BUA this year. We had a sweetness between us that we haven't had for awhile. And I have a few ideas in mind for next year, when I will try harder to help him find the magic, too.

Comments

[karen]

as a mom of only two boys i must say this resonates with me so much. i will have to think harder and talk to my husband, too. thank you for sharing this and here's to many more decembers with no bua for any of us.

[Lucy]

I love this! Great writing. And, yes, on the sentiments. Although, I am the wife and I struggled with letting go of my expectations. I hope your boys marry girls who love their ornaments.

[Kasandra Mathieson]

Love, love your post Amy! Just thought I would point out that we have a nativity ornament that Don's Mom gave me that was his to always put on the tree! I treasure that ornament, it's the only one we have from his childhood and he always looks for it. My kids look for it too and they know that it will be going to Mitchell, our only boy.I think your son's wives will love getting ornaments of their husbands and more than one would be a bonus! What a beautiful tradition....and I wish I had done that more but it's never too late to start! I now give ornaments to my 3 married kids as a couple and they love them.
How wonderful that you didn't have the BUA this year, doesn't it feel good to know that you're progressing lol. Seriously, this means that it doesn't have to happen and that you made sure of it! As much as I love Christmas I dread it too because it's so much work for me...nobody really understands but other MOMS!!! So thanks for sharing your feelings....love reading your writing!

[Margot]

Lovely post - and lots to think about as a wife, and mother of a boy. Love the photo of you and Kendall (and nice to see a bit more of 'our' sweater - looking great too, LOL!)

[Kristin]

Great post!! So much I can relate too. My parents gave all five of us kids ornaments every year and when they would travel they would look for ornaments for us then too. Their idea was that when we got married we would get a big box of our ornaments to take with us. We loved that idea. My mom would pick out or make beautiful and meaningful ornaments for us every year. She still does and gives ornaments to all the grandkids and spouses as well.

When I got married I was so excited to get all my ornaments to put on my own tree. This worked great for all of my sisters as well. We still love to go to each other's houses over the holidays and check out the Christmas trees to see the old ornaments we loved but didn't belong to us.

The problem was with my brother (the only boy). He, too, loved the ornaments tradition and happily took his box to put on his tree when he got married. His wife, on the other hand, was NOT THRILLED. She wanted a pretty coordinated matchy-matchy tree and didn't allow his ornaments to go on. He is since divorced and now living with his current girlfriend who also isn't sentimental and wants a designer style tree so he actually told my mom this year to please stop getting him ornaments anymore. It seriously hurt her feelings. She understood but still...it hurt...and shocked all of his sisters. But what can you do? He still takes the time every year to pick out gorgeous ornaments for all of us though.

I have 3 daughters and one son. He looks forward to what kind of ornament he will get each year and even makes requests. This year he wanted a trumpet ornament because he plays that instrument now and I was happy to oblige. This post made me sad that maybe all those sweet memory ornaments will end up in a box in storage somewhere.

Then it cause me to think about what Christmas traditions of my husband I have incorporated into our celebration. Not many. This was my compromise...we do his traditional Christmas things on New Years and that has worked pretty well for us. But I could definitely be a bit more generous in that department.

Thanks for giving me something to think about and try to improve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Wendy]

I follow the same tradition and have never given a thought to this possibility. I suppose, I won't mind if they never get used again. It was fun for me just to find them every year and write down why they were chosen (like the year I found an adorable teddy bear wearing a firefighter's suit for the year Bryce started a fire and melted the seal off one of the outside windows, bringing two cars to a halt to inform us that our house was on fire, while Bryce quietly walked in and asked for a bucket of water - oh my!). He may hate them. His wife may hate them. But I loved the giving and placing them on the tree until he leaves. Perhaps I'll just keep them all myself. Ha!

[Wendy]

Perhaps, when they are 18 and take the set with them, you should scrapbook photos of each ornament and the story behind each, so that you can hold these special memories and cherish what it gave to you! Just a thought.