The Holidays are upon us.  I just love this time of year, that probably stems from my mom’s love of Christmas.  She always went all out decorating the house and made a huge ordeal decorating the tree.  My mom, brother, and I would get all the ornaments out and decorate the tree (usually the day after Thanksgiving) while my dad put Christmas lights on the house.  We all knew that while my dad was putting lights up you didn’t talk to him.  He absolutely hated doing it and would b&m every-time he came into the house.  Needless to say, he was not in the best of moods, but it made my mom happy so he did it year after year.  By the time he finished, it would be nightfall.  We would then all have to step outside and ooh and ahhh at the masterpiece of Christmas lights that decorated our house. It was one of those Christmas traditions we grew into as a family.

When Ray and I got married in 2007, we realized that for Christmas (and other holidays) we would be creating our own traditions.  It wasn’t too difficult for us, since both of our families placed a huge importance on Christmas and it was a time to spend with family.  We both grew up with opening gifts in your pj’s so that is something we have kept.  My mom would always make the biggest breakfast on Christmas morning.  Ray’s family didn’t to that, they enjoyed eggnog (which my family never had).  It was those little things that were hard to get used to.  My first Christmas married to Ray we spent with his family (prior to that we had spent the holidays with our respective families and then met up later that day) since my parents had just moved to Arizona and my brother was in L.A.  It was tough because I missed that big breakfast, I missed my mom being OCD about the wrapping paper (she had a huge trash bag we would immediately have to put the wrapping paper in and the boxes would be neatly stacked in the corner, seriously).

I then realized that the traditions I grew up with would not be the exact same now that I was married.  Ray and I would need to create our own traditions.  One tradition we started when we first started dating was buying gifts for 2 children on the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree.  Those became the most important gifts for us to buy. They were put ahead of gifts for each other, for our families, etc.  We do have some of our traditions but we are also still  in the midst of creating our own(as with all traditions they don’t happen overnight).  We love hoping in the car and going to look at Christmas lights, we have a huge Christmas feast, we watch my favorite Christmas movie every year, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (it turned out to be one of Ray’s favorites too).

So to all of our newlywed couples, think about the traditions you want to start together.  Will it be going Caroling, adopting an angel, making cookies for Santa, etc?  Enjoy your first Holiday season as a married couple and this is your first year of creating your own traditions.