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Integrating holiday traditions in your family.

by Bethany Dunn -- Being Savvy Seattle

All is fair in love (and war) and holidays in a marriage until children enter the picture. In my family, since our in-laws and siblings' families all live out of our area we trade off the major holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) between the two families. What this means in reality, is that we are away from our home most of the time for these celebrations. For my husband and I, this was not an issue until our children joined the fray. My husband and I were flexible in how we spent our holidays; gifts were opened when convenient, the tree appeared and disappeared with no discussions, and we never even owned an Advent Calendar.

And then in 2003 my son was born. Even in the early years, our expectations for our family's holiday experience began to emerge. By the time I was pregnant with my daughter when my son was a year and a half, even though it was my family's "year" for Christmas, we made the choice not to travel 2,220 miles to gather with the rest of my family because my husband would not be able to travel with us (due to work obligations). Before children, I would have gone on without my husband. But there was no way I would not have my husband and son be together on Christmas.

Once the togetherness issue was crossed, we moved onto other "pressing" holiday issues. Just when to open the presents? In my family, we opened presents from relatives after we returned home from Christmas Eve service, while Santa arrived the next day; in my husband's family NO GIFT SHALL BE OPENED ON CHRISTMAS EVE. The tradition differences rolled on: What goes in stockings? Are presents opened one by one or in a made rush? When do we get the tree and how long does it stay up?

(PS. In my house, the tree does not come down until January 6 - Epiphany.)

What was the most interesting to me is how strongly my husband held his opinions about his traditions. This was surprising to me since he is open and laid back in most other ways. And, rather than throw my hands up in disgust, I took it to heart in realization of just how important he believes traditions are to making the holidays special to our children - and our family as a whole.

Here's what I've learned from our family's experience in merging our Christmas and other holiday expectations:

1. Figure about why it's important to you. The present opening treatise was settled in our house when we looked a bit deeper at our individual families' experiences. In talking about it, I discovered out that my father-in-law's (who passed away years before I met my husband) birthday was December 24, and he was very particular about how his birthday was celebrated (i.e. a separate birthday cake, no Christmas wrapping paper used on his birthday presents, etc.). In doing my own research, I discovered that it is traditional that Germans (my background) celebrate Christmas much as we did in my own family. Once you examine what is informing your view, you are better able to work with your partner to develop your family's plans. In our case, my husband was able to yield on this issue (he also recognized that it made practical sense to spread out the gift opening a bit).
   
2. Talk. Discuss. Ruminate. Examine. Debate. Talk. And, yes, negotiate.
   
3. Develop some of your family's own traditions. Perhaps you will decide that Christmas Eve is for your extended family, while Christmas morning is just for you. You can implement this in simpler ways as well. For example, starting with my son's first Christmas, we started to purchase Christmas pajamas for the kids to open on Christmas Eve. They love them and they look great in Christmas Day present opening photos, too. It's been really fun to plan these type of traditions with my husband.

What is the most important part of this process is to keep communicating and working together as a family. We're passionate about our traditions because they are what we look back fondly on when remembering family life. But, in reality, your children may not remember just when the tree went up (or down), or what day they opened presents on, but they will remember that you did it together as a family. And, that is a tradition I think we can all agree on.