Our girls are big enough now to remember events from quite a while ago, including from last year’s holiday season. Honeybun has always had a great memory and can remember silly little details that even I had forgotten and Sugarplum is now starting to keep memories from the past as well. For this reason, I have started to feel the need to have family traditions. With the exception of the late summer months, we are constantly waiting and anticipating the next holiday and I want my children to have something to look forward to with each holiday as well as know what to expect and know what fun things we are going to do.
Some holidays like Christmas and Easter have developed traditions organically, and I’m finding some need a little more help. New Year’s is one of those holidays that needs a little help. It comes so quickly after Christmas, leaving us little time to amp up about it and my girls are still too little to stay up until midnight (heck, they’re too messy to stay up until bedtime some days!).
On New Year’s Eve, my sister, who is still visiting, suggested we go to see the drive-through light show that goes up each year in our local county park. We’d been talking about doing it for weeks but didn’t want to take 2 cars so now that we have the bigger car (see “My New Ride”), the idea came back up and a light-bulb went on in my head: This could be our New Year’s tradition! Each New Year’s Eve we can go drive through the light show with the kids, so we did.
The girls loved it and so did all of us adults (though poor Doodle couldn’t see much other than me and got bored of the car by the end)! It took us about a half hour to slowly meander through the entire display and the girls were delighted by many of the lights they saw including a dinosaur pushing a baby buggy, a princess castle and Santa water skiing.
I hope it is a tradition we do indeed keep up with. I know as they get older they will want to do their own thing and be with their friends, but I just might be “that mom” that MAKES my kids take the time to have a moment with family before jetting off. Merely spending that time together and experiencing something so simple yet delightful is the kind of memories I want to create with and for my children.
(On a car seat note: I made all my kids stay in their seats buckled up throughout the drive. Even at slow speeds I am not comfortable with them being unrestrained as not all other drivers are as aware and careful as they should be. I let Sugarplum ride facing forward in her backup seat as her usual seat is installed in the middle and she can’t see much and halfway into our 10 minute drive home she started complaining she wanted to get in her other “backwards seat” because her legs were uncomfortable hanging down, so much for the myth that older children are too uncomfortable for rear-facing!)
The kids would get bored with the new toys after Christmas quickly, so I made a present remain under the tree for each child until New years eve /day( if they were awake they could open it at midnight if not after breakfast the next morning. It kept the excitement around until the New Year Day and gave them something new to do for the last few days before school started up. We also drank root beer floats at midnight.
Luanne,
I love both of those ideas. We do a Christmas Eve present but a New Year’s Eve present would be great too!