Attitude of Gratitude

[avismama24]

Hi All,

Just wondering how all the new Mama's out there are handling the holiday season. So far is has been going well for us, but we have also not made a big production out of anything. I come from a family where little traditions are a BIG deal, my mother was the queen of birthday celebrations, any holiday was special and unique and as kids my brother and I could always count on certain things, getting a new ornament, pancakes for breakfast, cutting down a tree with a birds nest, etc.

Needless to say I felt a lot of pressure to re-create this with my own family, and it always felt stressful, so I decided NOT to, I don't really like the added pressure. We got our tree today and my DH and I had thought we would do the whole big go into the woods with the sled and cocoa and cut down the tree and you know what we ended up buying on on the side of the road and decorating it in our pajamas with one year old DS chewing on ornamanets and it was PERFECT. I'm sure as our family gets older we will make more traditions but for now this feels good.

Anyone else taking this approach?

[Kaydove]

My mother is the exact same way! My DH has a hard time with with knowing what to do for my birthday because for his I decorate the house in streamers, make breakfast in bed, plan an adventure, and get him a gift I've been planning on for months! I grew up with not only Easter baskets but also Valentines and St Patrick day baskets!

This year we're laid off and DD is only 9 months so trying to keep it low key. Or not think about it at all. We're going to celebrate Yule as our spiritual holiday sans gifts so that will help to keep spending under control and Christmas doesn't have a special meaning to us so I don't feel like I need to make it extravagant.

[avismama24]

Oh I hear you on the baskets, my mother did them for every holiday...we too celebrate yule and not Christmas...I would love to hear any traditions you do for Yule. We are just starting this as our son is young and neither my husband and I have a strong tie to Christmas and we wanted to move away from commercialism.

[Kaydove]

This will be our first year celebrating Pagan holidays, only have Samhain under our belt. Maiasaura has awesome traditions for Yule that she shared over on the Pagan family thread here: 

http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1367185/nestling-into-november-pagan-family-thread/40#post_17172348

We're going to bake sunbread and I would like to wake up for the sunrise, just need to convince DH. I need to sort out what else what we're going to do, it helps me to write it all down. 

[avismama24]

Thank you for that link...i took a look at it this am and think I may post something more specific in that section which i wasn't all that aware exsisted. This is our first year of yule too so we are kind of flying by thr seat of our pants. We are a blended family with a baby and two tween children and we didn't want them to have to go between two homes on Christmas day...and I was looking to start something meaningul with DS. So far we have decided to put up our tree to symbolize light and warmth, and we we have been reading the books The Tomten and a short story I found on-line about winter yule fairies, as well as books on winter solstice. We explained to the older children that on the night of the winter solstice the yule fairies come and make sure that everything has everything they need for the rest of the winter and they bring gifts to offer cheer as we slowly begin to move into spring. My DH and I decided that they would get 4 gifts, one for each season...this helped us to stay away from the mountain of presents under the tree. We also will have them leave their shoes out as stocking for the fairies to fill.

I really like the idea of sun bread and will probably order that book. We were looking for a good breakfast tradition.