Yay, Family Traditions!

"When you create family traditions, you help make lasting memories that hold families together."-- Caroline Kennedy.

This post is inspired by my middle daughter, Lacey, aka @aacerr, age 20 and a junior at Texas State University.  In a previous post, Parties and Presents!, I talked about how birthdays are celebrated in our family.  We are huge into creating traditions. For example, in this post on Photos, you can see many of our traditions illustrated.  Last week when I was writing the post about Santa, Lacey sent me a long note listing all of our traditions by month.  The note ended with this:

Here are a few of our favorite traditions:   

January:  This being the month after all the holidays, it would seem to be a good time to rest, but there is no rest for the Party Wechsler family!  Not only do we celebrate my birthday and my brother Lance's birthday in January, (often at my favorite Chilis), but it has also become a family tradition that we celebrate Bramble, our stuffed rabbit's birthday too.  Complete with cake and candles.  He will be 8 years old in 2014.  Oh, where has the time gone, stuffed rabbit?  I'm telling you:  Any excuse to party. 

In February, Valentine’s day is very important. This is the holiday of love, hearts, stuffed animals, the color red, chocolate, and wine. Wait, wine? I may have just started that tradition. Now, here, in this blog post.  I am so good at this. 

Two of my daughters have March birthdays, but there's a glitch in this month, so the tradition has evolved into the following inevitable steps:  

• Vow to schedule birthday party on time for (insert Ariel, Lacey or Zoe, this has been going on for years) 
• Procrastinate scheduling party due to St Patrick's day celebrations, Spring Break and sometimes even Easter 
• Finally squeeze party in right before Fiesta! in April

The beauty of this is that what is actually a total mom fail has become a Family Tradition.

Here is what Lacey's note says about April:   

       

"April is usually Easter and Fiesta, we dye Easter eggs together and then on Easter we do the egg hunt for the hard boiled eggs in the morning and then we open our baskets together, always with an egg for Ariel (whether she is there or not) and the Bram and the Atlas, the cat, then we go to grandma's for the money egg hunt. :D"   

Zoe said, "She forgot going to Mass," but I’m pretty sure Lacey didn't “forget” to list Mass in her Yay! Family Traditions list.  ;p 

May is Mother's Day:  I heart Mother's Day - the kids have to do everything I say.  #asif

Our big summer tradition is to rent a huge multiple bedroom house on the water in a coastal Florida town like Destin.  My parents and 4 sibs and their families all usually go and there have been as many as 22 of us on these trips. If I go this year, I will probably do a post about these vacas, which are chock full of little traditions.  

The aforementioned Parties post describes our August tradition to have a big celebration of all the June, July and August birthdays.  

September is of course the school supply shopping expedition and the first day of school outfit selection complete with requisite picture taking.  This is all preceded by the tradition of refusing to believe that summer is coming to an end as described here in my Procrastination Meets Denial post. 

I'm pretty sure I did Halloween justice in these posts:  A Problem with Pumpkins, Cackles,Cauldrons, and Cobwebs: our Costume Craze, and Baubles,Trinkets and Knickknacks, Oh My!, but here it is in Lacey-speak: 

• 1st bring a million Halloween boxes down to decorate the house   
• Then find costume 
• Then Momma's Halloween party
• Then trick or treating on Halloween at sunset with dad and momma hands out candy
• Finally, Apple cider and pictures by the pumpkin ghost

Lacey's note continues for November:  "1st is away with the ghosts and out with the turkeys. Then Thanksgiving with everyone at gramma's house, then Black Friday shoppin,' Christmas tree shoppin' for gramma's the day after thanksgiving and Christmas tree decorating with the grandkids while listening to Christmas music."  

I keep trying to create a tradition to get everyone over to my house to get all my Christmas boxes out and downstairs, but it never happens. Thanksgiving is all about Grandma's house. 

And finally, Lacey has this to say about December, the most wonderful time of the year:  "Oh man, then it's time for December and that's when things get crazy. Turkeys make way for Santa and elf hats in the house."

Her list of Christmas traditions:  

• Find a weekend to get a tree, decorate it, drink eggnog and make a fire :) :) :) 
• Pick a night to go the river walk and see all the lights and ride on the barges 
• Open up one present and Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve to take a million pictures with all of us (including the kitty and the Bram [we've even been known to take a picture or two with the fish]).  
•  Sprinkle reindeer dust on the front lawn and leave carrots out for the reindeer (which I'm pretty sure Bramble just steals anyways) and cookies and milk for Santa (which he most definitely does not need, surely he gets enough).
• Do our stockings on Christmas morning (of course Bram and Atlas have stockings, haven't you been paying attention ?) 
• Go over to gramma's to open more presents and eat a lovely Christmas meal prepared by the lovely gramma 
• Uncle Shane is always the Present Elf
• We also always go to a Spurs game as a family whether it be before or after Christmas, it's an important tradition. 
• Then New Year's Eve brings forth sparkling cider and either downtown San Antonio or the NYE celebration on the TV in New York.
• Yay !!!!! Traditions !!!! We're such a cute family." 

(Zoe:  "She forgot Mass again.") :) 

A new tradition this year:  We are going to Tokyo steakhouse for my grandmother's 90th birthday today!.