With Christmas fast approaching my husband and I have decided on some of the traditions we wish to adopt in our home with our growing family.
We never talked much about our own family traditions for Christmas until now. I was soon to discover through our discussions how different our Christmas celebrations were.
My husband never really got to celebrate. There was no money for gifts, no lavish cooked lunch, no visit to church, no Christmas tree, no family close by to come together. Christmas was like any other day for his family, despite their religious beliefs.

I, on the other hand had a very different experience.
I have the warmest memories of Christmas time when I was growing up. I remember fondly of the church events with my Granny at the farm, dressing the fresh Christmas tree with all our tacky, but beloved home-made decorations, taking it in turns to open the window of the family advent calendar. And of course then there was the special day itself, where we would each have a real, nylon stocking (donated by my obese Grandmother – which greedily could fit more in it being XXXL). We would go to church, share a meal with my 7 aunts and uncles and their partners, my 25 cousins, and the six of us in my immediate family. We would scoff Granny’s delicious pudding whilst sharing our gifts. We would swim at the dam, go yabbying and have our traditional afternoon snooze.

It wasn’t until I compared our typical Christmas day that I realised how incredibly fortunate I was, but also how over-indulged we were.

I visited my sister a few days later and asked her what ‘traditions’ she had started with her husband and two girls. Their Christmas was even more indulgent. The girls had their own advent calendar to open each day, they would spend at least $1000 on gifts per child, they would have a huge banquet for lunch and the fresh Christmas tree was decorated like it was stolen from the Myer window.

So, in our household we have decided on a beautiful balance of traditions. The plastic Christmas tree with the tacky lights and home-made decorations would be just right for us, our church visit was essential, one advent calendar for the whole family would be more than enough, small gifts that would show our love and appreciation for each other was the key, and my home-made stockings would be hung up with pride. We also decided to donate money to a charity to help families less fortunate than us. I will admit that the lunch would continue to be lavish, and a snooze inevitable.

It just goes to show how quickly the ‘silly season’ can get out of hand and we can lose sight of what this day is really all about.

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