Family Traditions

When you move every couple of years it is hard to create family traditions. Those traditions can't be associated with a certain location or event. These traditions need to happen within your home. With just your family. Because those are the only things you can take with you...no matter where you move. I learned this the hard way when we moved from Minnesota to Texas and had to leave our beloved annual pumpkin patch trip with friends behind.

Luckily we didn't leave all our traditions behind in the Midwest. One of our family traditions is making Christmas cookies together. I am NOT a baker. I just don't enjoy it. Add in a bunch of little "helping" hands and it can get downright stressful. But from the time Isaiah was a toddler I have done this every year with my kids. Its messy. Its chaotic. The cookies never turn out that great. But its our tradition. And we can do it anywhere. As long as we are together.

December 2009:

December 2011:

 December 2014:

December 2017:

Remember that stressful and messy part? This year I totally lucked out when a residency friend offered to host the cookie baking and decorating at her house! All the mess and stress but no cleaning required. My kind of cookie night:)

This last week Charlotte had a school assignment to write about one of our family traditions. She didn't pick Christmas cookie baking and decorating. She didn't choose the pumpkin patch. And she didn't write about tent camping as a family. Those are the top three family traditions I would have thought she would have picked. Instead she wrote about our annual summer road trip to Minnesota. That's a pretty good tradition too. I can see why she wrote about it:)