"Tra-diiiiiiiiition!"

Howdy! I'm glad you're here.  

This post probably contains run-on sentences, sentence fragments, 

affiliate links, and unnecessary ellipses.  If none of that bothers you, let's be friends.

Interview question seven:

"How do Christmas festivities now, with seven kids, compare to those you had when you just had a few littles? Any ideas or advice for parents who haven't set their traditions in stone?"

I think the most important part of this is the second question so let's talk about that first.

The best piece of advice I can offer is to never treat your traditions as if they are set in stone.  As your family changes, what's best for your family may change.  Keeping in mind that traditions serve the purpose of uniting a family and are not a purpose unto themselves is so valuable, especially if you have the personality type that exalts in predictability and routine.  If "what we always do" is causing unnecessary strife, division, or frustration (eg: Me during tree decorating, freaking out that people aren't putting ornaments in the right place or the colors aren't being properly spread apart and just generally being miserable and taking everyone with me) it's okay to rethink that tradition (eg Now twitchy mama does not participate in tree decorating [not in a passive-agressive bratty way, most importantly!] but rather lets dad and the kids do it while she works on some other fun thing of her own choosing and then they surprise her and she always loves it and everyone is happy).

Being flexible about traditions has allowed ours to grow and improve over time as our family has grown and as our kids have gotten older.  The biggest thing is that we simply have MORE things we like to do because we have more people and each person tends to really love a different aspect of our celebrations.  Some people love the Christmas movies leading up to Christmas, somebody loves baking cookies and giving them away to our delivery drivers on Christmas Adam (the day before Christmas Eve, natch), some live for lighting the candles on the advent wreath every night.  We've got the opening and hanging of the Christmas cards that arrive in the mail each day, we've got putting out the nativity sets, we're decorating the mantel, we're hanging the wreaths on the doors, and not everyone is all lined up for each of these things.  There's sort of an organic dividing of the troops based on what they love and remember the most, and I'm fine with that.

Obviously there are going to be things you all do together, but that's going to look different for each family.  We always eat our dinners together, we go to Mass together, and we open our gifts together- those are sort of our Christmas non-negotiables because we feel that those are the most crucial traditions in keeping our family united.  Maybe those things will change someday.  I have to be remain open. Outside of those, though, the best thing we can do is to allow all the various and sundry sweet elements to add to and increase our celebrations while being mindful of, and avoiding, the temptation to put nostalgia before relationships.

 
Posting for the 12 days of Christmas...
12 in 2016 (a photo year in review)
Stuff That Makes My Life Better
Where did all these children come from?!?!
Homeschooling High School
I Dream of Houses
Dollah Dolla Billz
Wood Shed, Wood Box, Wood Stove: heating with wood in Michigan