Chinese New Year and the Year of Monkey

恭喜发财! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Welcome the year of the Monkey!!

Because we had arrived home last year just days before the start of Chinese New Year, we sadly did nothing in recognition of the holiday.  We didn't want to miss the opportunity for a second year in a row, especially because the biggest holiday of the year for the Chinese also coincided with the one-year anniversary of being together as a family of six.  We had a lot to celebrate!

The Chinese New Year starts on Monday, February 8, so I wanted to celebrate on New Year's Eve, but that happened to be the Super Bowl, so our party got pushed to the Eve of New Year's Eve, or Saturday.  Such things sometimes happen when you're trying to balance two cultures. 

Before dinner started, my mother-in-law taught everyone about the "year of the monkey."  People born in this year are supposedly "witty and intelligent with magnetic personalities, but also very naughty. Monkeys are masters of practical jokes, because they like playing most of the time."  She then went around the table and told each person what his or her zodiac sign was and what they mean.  Lively discussions ensued about who most resembled the supposed attributes of their zodiac sign. 

Year of the Monkey - Do's and Don'ts

Such as it is in many cultures when it comes to holidays, food is a big component of Chinese New Year. I love to cook and am determined to learn how to cook a few key Chinese dishes, but Chris convinced me that cooking dishes I'm not familiar with for 14 people would not be in my best interest.  A friend had given me a recommendation for a Chinese restaurant run by a woman from Shanghai, so I reluctantly gave in and ordered food.  I set the table with dinner plates, bowls of soy sauce, chopsticks and the tea sets we had bought last year in China and then Chris showed up with steaming hot containers of noodles, meat and vegetable dishes and of of course dumplings, a symbol of luck and fortune for the new year.  As we dug into the delicious food, I knew I couldn't have made it any better.

Chris and I hope that we can gather our family and friends every year for Chinese New Year and that we can expand upon traditions in future years as we learn more about the birth culture of Kiera and Matteo. 

On the Hunt for Our Christmas Tree

I might have oversold Minnesota winters.  Before matching with an au pair, I warn him or her how brutal winters here can be and make sure he or she is hearty enough to come live here.  We can't afford to have someone freak out when the temperature drops below zero and want to stay indoors because that makes for a long and sedentary winter, both for the au pair and our children.  But Celina wasn't phased.  She bought herself a warm coat and is fully prepared for winter's arrival.  Since they so rarely ever have snow at Christmas where she's from in Germany, she confided in me that one of the things she was most looking forward to about coming to Minnesota was having a white Christmas.  With lots of rain and highs consistently in the 40s this past week, I'm afraid Celina's wish isn't going to come true.  I do everything I can to give my au pairs the year of their dreams, but gosh, Minnesota, you're letting me down! 

It was with this unseasonably warm weather that we went on the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree at Krueger's Tree Farm.  We picked up a saw and trekked out into the fields.  I was glad I had dressed the kids in boots, not for the snow, which there was none, of course, but for the mud!  The unseasonably warm weather meant that more people than expected had also decided it would be more fun to chop down their own tree and the pickings were slim.  After tromping around to for a bit, we decided we'd try our luck with a pre-cut tree instead. 

St. Nicholas Stopped By

St. Nicholas had a lot of shoes to fill this year!  Four pairs for the kids and one pair for Celina, who is a kid at heart. 

In our adapted St. Nick's tradition, everyone receives a book in addition to the traditional treats.  Celina got a copy of the classic, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and the kids received How to Catch Santa, The Littlest Elf, Biscuit's Pet and Play Christmas and The Itsy Bitsy Snowman. 

Carols and Cocoa

After a two-year hiatus from Carols and Cocoa, we made it this year!   Every year we crowd into my friend's living room to sing Christmas carols accompanied by a piano.  Except two years ago it snowed enough the afternoon caroling was planned that I couldn't even manage the short ten-minute drive to her house.  Then last year their daughter came down with the highly-contagious Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. So I was thankful that this year the weather cooperated and everyone was healthy. 

My friend's husband played the guitar while his sister played the piano and everyone who wanted to sing sang along.  Adults took breaks in the kitchen to sip hot cocoa or tea and munch on seasonal treats while the kids alternated between joining us for a carol or two and then disappearing to the kids' bedroom to play.  Oliver's favorite song right now is Frosty the Snowman.  Both kids liked ringing the bells we were given for a raucous rendition of Jingle Bells.  It was a wonderful way to spend a winter afternoon.

Sankt Nikolaustag

The Facebook post of a friend who recently moved to Leipzig, Germany tugged at my nostalgia for the innocence of childhood and a tradition brought from my short time in Switzerland. 

"Walking up the Leipzig apartment stairs last night, shoes filled with goodies waited quietly outside doors where children live."   

Sankt Nikolaus managed to make it from Leipzig to St. Paul last night to fill two additional pairs of shoes.  Oliver and Soren woke up to shoes filled with chocolate coins, clementines and GORP, an Americanized nod to the traditional nuts, dried fruit and chocolate children in northern Europe receive. 

Each boy also received an extra gift from Sankt Nikolaus this year - a book.  I decided to move the Book on Every Bed, an initiative to promote reading by giving children a new book on Christmas morning, to St. Nicholas Day.  Since I like to gift Christmas-themed books, I thought it made more sense for the kids to receive the books before Christmas.  Now they'll have some more time to enjoy One-Dog Sleigh and Little Santa. 

Balancing Birthdays

How do you make birthdays for kids meaningful?  It's a delicate balance between making the day special and not over-indulging or over-whelming them.  And our family has an extra challenge of celebrating three birthdays (and one anniversary!) in one month's time.  That's a lot of cake!  We want to celebrate each individual in the family without experiencing birthday fatigue.  So how do you find the balance?  I think the answer is going to evolve from year to year depending upon what's going on in our lives and what the kids (and we) want.  Some years we'll get it better than others - and that's okay. 

When we asked Oliver what he wanted to do this year for his birthday, he chose to spend an afternoon at an amusement park over having a birthday party.  At first I was a little disappointed.  My Pinterest board was full of four-year-old-birthday party ideas and I wasn't going to get to use them.  Eventually disappointment gave way to relief.  Oliver had just given me a birthday gift - I wasn't going to have to plan a party!  Because, honestly, Pinterest-worthy birthday parties are not my forte.  More importantly, Oliver should get to celebrate his birthday the way he wants to. 

And he did.  We went to Como Town with his best buddy, the little guy he used to see daily, but now only gets to see when his mom and I manage to arrange a playdate.  He got to request what he wanted for breakfast (waffles!) and ate them off a special birthday plate.  He finished his day off at a Twins game, where his dad let him eat every possible bad-for-you kind of food his heart desired. 

With Oliver content to have a birthday outing instead of a party and Soren not old enough to provide much input, (his wants were simple - cake - that much I was sure of) we opted for a family party.  I did what I thought I wouldn't do for kids whose birthdays are so close together and that's hold a joint party and have, gasp, one cake!  But it worked out.  Really, the kids are at an age where it doesn't matter to them.  They were both happy to have family come over, open a couple gifts and eat cake.  They didn't care that it was the same cake and they weren't counting who got more presents.  This is one where I was finally going to let myself relax and truly "enjoy it while it lasts." 

Strawberry Bounty

The strawberries were plentiful this year and my friend Dawn and I were fortunate to be able to continue our tradition of taking our kids strawberry picking on the 4th of July.  And what a day for it - sunny skies and low 80s.  We took a tractor ride out to the strawberry patch and upon first inspection, I was delighted to see how big the berries were in comparison with last year's crop.  I couldn't stop picking them and 15 pounds of strawberries later, I was still excited to thrust apart a bunch of leaves and see another juicy and deep red berry hidden below. 

Just Soren was along for this season's strawberry-picking outing since Chris had taken Oliver up to the cabin with him for the weekend.  Last summer Soren wasn't walking, (I can't even remember if he was crawling) so I had plopped him down on a towel in between rows of berries.  Of course he wasn't content to just sit in one spot and by the time we had finished picking, he was wet (it had drizzled on and off that morning) and muddy and had consumed more straw, dirt and leaves than I want to think about. 

What a difference a year makes. Soren and I set right to work at the edge of our assigned row.  I picked a strawberry and dropped it in the cardboard tray and Soren picked it up and took a small bite out of it and dropped it back in the tray.  I picked a second strawberry and Soren took a bite out of that one too.  Not wanting to cut off all the gnawed halves of strawberries before making jam, I picked a whole bunch of berries for Soren and then took the other cardboard tray to the other end of our row and resumed picking.  Soren happily munched on strawberry after strawberry and sometimes ate the whole thing, little green top and all! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can imagine, Soren was covered in strawberry juice and sweat by the time we were finished, but he was a happy kid.  And after a morning full of sun, tractor sightings and all the strawberries he could eat, he fell fast asleep on the car ride home. 

A very merry brown Christmas

We had what Minnesotans refer to as a brown Christmas - meaning no snow.  And while snow is what I think Chris asks Santa for every year, with a new little one and a toddler, I'm not complaining right now about the lack of it.  Not only am I not climbing over snowbanks with a car seat or trying to push a shopping cart loaded down with children through a slushy parking lot, but we've had some unseasonably warm days as well.  I've been able to do more walking with the stroller than I usually do at this time of year, and the fewer items of clothing you have to bundle your kids in, the easier it is to "dash" out to the car. 

We did have quintessential winter weather earlier in the month when a few inches of snow and brisk temperatures greeted us on the morning we went to pick out our Christmas tree.  But the otherwise lack of snow the rest of the month didn't make the holidays any less festive.  We baked and decorated gingerbread cookies to deliver to our neighbors, sang Christmas carols with friends, received a visit from St. Nicholas, visited the Macy's "A Day in the Life of an Elf" at Santa Land in downtown Minneapolis and baked dozens of cookies for our annual cookie exchange with friends.  Although Oliver was not happy about visiting with Santa Claus at the beginning of the season, he was clearly interested in him as he excitedly pointed out Santa everywhere he saw him, whether it was a glimpse of him in a newspaper ad or a live Santa exiting the grocery store.

After the last trip to the post office had been made, presents had been wrapped and stockings had been hung with care, we packed up the kids and headed to Chris's parent's for the annual Christmas Eve potluck feast where we caught up with each other on a year's worth of news.  We had planned to put Oliver to bed upstairs around his normal bedtime, but before we knew it, it was THREE HOURS past his bedtime, he had consumed nothing but milk and trail mix and he was making repeated laps around the first floor wearing a Santa hat. 

Soren made the rounds among the arms of relatives and introduced himself to those he hadn't met before.  His Great-Grandma Ann particularly fawned over him.  She has Alzheimer's and although I was cognizant of continuously referring to him as her great-grandson or her grandson Chris's son, I was never completely certain she really knew who he was or if she'd remember him later on.  But that didn't seem to matter that night.  She seemed so happy to be able to cuddle a beautiful little baby in her arms and get a few smiles dripping with drool out of him. 

It was a sentimental evening for Chris's grandfather too who cried when he told Chris how proud he was of him and the beautiful family he had created.  Every time he gets to see his beautiful great-grandsons is a blessing, he said.  Now Chris's mom is the type to cry at weddings, but in my observations of the Cheslas, the Chesla men aren't the crying types. So I found the story especially poignant.
Despite the over stimulation of Christmas Eve, Soren kept his night-wakings to a minimum and Oliver slept in. Awesome!

We got Oliver dressed and camera-ready and went downstairs to open presents, but it turned out we were more excited about opening his presents than Oliver was. As soon as the presents had gone under the tree in the days before Christmas, Oliver had trouble staying away from them. He liked sorting them and using them like blocks, but on Christmas morning, he just didn't get the concept of unwrapping them. He'd become engrossed with the most current unwrapped gift and didn't care much that something equally as fun was underneath the wrapping of the next gift.  It was a good reminder for me as a parent that a few special gifts can go a long way.
After our traditional Christmas Day soup and sandwich lunch, and a nap for Oliver, we had a final round of opening presents at the grandparent's. 

This was the first year since moving to Minnesota that I haven't gone back to Philadelphia at Christmas time.  Now that I have a family of my own and Minnesota feels like home to me, I like being able to spend Christmas here, have my kids wake up on Christmas morning in their own beds and maintain as stress-free of a holiday for them by limiting the number of celebrations we attend and banning travel on the actual holiday days.  Unfortunately, it is impossible to be in two places at once.  So that means there were four of us missing from the Partenheimer Christmas celebration back in Philadelphia.  The first couple of Christmases after my mom died were really tough.  Bu the holidays are once again happier and more lively times now that my dad is remarried.  My brother, dad and I didn't just get a new step-mom/wife, but a whole extra family with Debbie's daughter, son-in-law, two kids, as well as her mom and mom's new husband.  With eleven people gathered around their table on Christmas Eve, they achieved having the most people come together for a Partenheimer Christmas.  So even though we couldn't have been two places at once, that doesn't mean I didn't fantasize about it being possible, or at least how I could convince the Philadelphia relatives to move to Minnesota.

A Book on Every Bed

The "A Book on Every Bed" campaign is simple.  Place a book on your kid's bed on Christmas morning (or whatever holiday you celebrate) and spread the love of reading.  The campaign's goal is to put a million books on a million beds because, alarmingly, significantly less than half of kids in the U.S. have books in their homes and/or have parents who read to them regularly. 

Oliver and Soren are lucky, because they will never be lacking books since I think kids can never have enough of them.  (Even if they just want to read the same few over and over again.)  If relatives or friends want to spoil them, then spoil them with books.

I happened to read about "A Book on Every Bed" shortly before I took the kids to story time at our favorite kids bookstore.  They get books from Mom and Dad every birthday and Christmas, so I decided that in the spirit of the campaign, I'd make sure two more books are added to the tally.  We'll see what books await Soren and Oliver at the foot of their crib or bed this Christmas morning.

Soren's first St. Nicholas Day

Oliver helped Soren observe his first St. Nicholas Day by eating his chocolate.  I had made a special exception in allowing Oliver to eat the Hershey's kisses St. Nicholas had brought, but gosh, those little size 6.5 shoes can hold a lot of candy!  So I eventually cut him off. Oliver whined and cried when I put his Hershey's Kisses-filled shoes out of reach, until he discovered he could pilfer some Kisses from Soren's shoes. (Even his little shoes fit a lot of candy.)  I guess Oliver figured Soren wasn't going to eat his candy anyway...

With his chocolate supply cut off for the morning, Oliver still got to enjoy a Clementine and a handful of trail mix with breakfast.

Christmas carols

I can't sing, can't read music, never can remember more than the first line of a song and don't even really have much interest in music, let alone singing.  I'm often embarrassed to sing in groups, lest I annoy the person next to me by singing so horribly out of key.  Heck, I'm self-conscious about singing in front of my own kids.  But the nostalgia of Christmas carols is too strong to stop me from wanting to sing along.

So I actually enjoyed myself when I attended a "Carols and Cocoa" party friends hosted.  I couldn't have found a more wholesome Advent season gathering.  In an era of over-scheduled calendars and music on demand, how many of us have the opportunity to sit around the piano with our kids and friends, mugs of cocoa in hand, and sing Christmas carols? 

They even provided a packets with the lyrics for those of us who don't know the words past Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Maybe next year

We had prepped Oliver by asking if he'd been naughty or nice, whether he'd been a good boy this year and what he wanted for Christmas, but this year he didn't even give Santa a chance to ask.  Last Christmas he was none too happy about sitting on Santa's lap, but he couldn't walk yet and wasn't as strong, so he didn't have much recourse when he was plopped on Santa's lap.  This year he's a full-fledged toddler with a (strong) will of his own.  Letting him swipe as many cookies as he wanted from the snack table had kept him in good spirits while we waited in line, but right before it was his turn to visit with the jolly old man and his sweet wife, Oliver made it clear he was  not interested. So while Oliver hung back with Dad, I took advantage of Soren napping, placed him in Mrs. Claus's arms and got my photo op with at least one of my kids with the Clauses.

We tried cheering Oliver up by taking him over to have his face painted.  Oliver LOVES painting - he'd been talking about it since he got up that morning.  Except he didn't understand that he wasn't getting to paint - that someone was going to paint for him instead.  He probably thought, what's the fun in that?  He sat patiently at the table at first and eyed the paints, brushes and paper, but became increasingly agitated when no one granted his requests for "paint" and "brush."  We decided to leave before a full meltdown ensued and we literally carried him away from the table. 

As we left, we saw a couple of other kids Oliver's age who cried at the sight of Santa Claus, so it's clearly the age.  I guess we'll just have to try again next year.

Advent Calendar

Although it's not quite December, Thanksgiving has passed and we can officially get ready for Christmas.  I had been on the hunt for a wooden Advent Calendar, the kind with 24 little doors or drawers, perfect for stashing pieces of chocolate.  I never found what I was looking for, but did stumble across the idea for an Envelope Advent Calendar, where each envelope contains an activity for the day.  Chris and I think this will be a nice tradition for the boys, because it encourages us to do something fun and festive together as a family each day leading up to Christmas.  And the set-up of the calendar is something I can pull off easily despite having few crafting supplies and even less talent or creativity.  With a clothesline and clothespins, a box of small white envelopes, a sheet of labels to print the template of numbers onto and some note cards, I'm set.

Chris and I brainstormed as many toddler-friendly ideas as we could and wrote them out on note cards.  (Including a picture representing the activity would have been nice since Oliver can't read yet.)  Some of the activities we are planning to do anyway, like pick out a Christmas tree, and others are just fun and simple, like eating a Christmas cookie for afternoon snack instead of one of the usual healthful options.  Planning the Advent Calendar made us think about how to instill the fun of the Christmas season with other activities Oliver would like to do.  And it gets us to plan and commit.  It's easy to come up with ideas and then not go do them. 

Some of the activities Oliver has to look forward to in December:

• Pick out Christmas tree
• Decorate the Christmas tree
• Have a snowball fight
• Build a fort
• Build a snowman.
• Bake gingerbread cookies
• Visit Santa
• Take a drive to see Christmas lights
• Read Christmas stories
• Go sledding
• Eat a Christmas cookie for snack
• Open one present early
• Decorate Christmas cards
• Paint a picture of a snow scene
• Shop for a present for Soren
• Make a Christmas ornament
• Go to the zoo
• Help Mom wrap Christmas presents
• Attend Christmas cookie exchange
• Watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas
• Bring a green and red ball to swimming lessons
• Visit the Night Train exhibit at the Twin City Model Railroad Museum
• Skype with a relative we don't see often
• Sing Christmas carols

To keep the activities as flexible as possible, we won't put a note card in an envelope until the night before.  We noticed we have a lot activities that require there to be snow, but if the ground stays barren, those activities will be recycled until next year.

You're never wrong with a tie

With a hot, hot summer, and a desire to dig in dirt and sand, Oliver's sole attire week after week had been casual shorts, t-shirts and the only pair of shoes he owned in his size, a pair of Keen sandals. His wardrobe had fit his needs for the summer, but when the invitation arrived for the wedding of one of Chris's cousins, I took one look at Oliver (who happened to be jumping in a mud puddle at that moment) and sounding way too much like my grandmother, exclaimed, "I can't take him to a wedding looking like that!"

We have a saying in our family - you're never wrong with a tie. According to my grandmother, when my dad was a "youngster" he was invited somewhere and my grandmother said he had to wear a tie and he said nobody else would have a tie on, to which she replied "You're never wrong with a tie." And that's how an off-hand retort became an ingrained belief in my family. So even though we're not otherwise formal-dressing people, there are situations in which the men in my family would never consider not wearing a tie, even if they forgo a jacket and pair it with a casual button-down shirt and pair of khakis.

Despite warnings to the contrary, Oliver tolerated his very grown-up looking outfit, even the the clip-on tie, and he had a great time at the wedding. He played on the church playground during the ceremony, ran around the golf course during the reception and even got a ride on a golf cart after his Uncle Andy talked an employee into loaning them the cart. He even got away with a couple of mini tantrums, probably of course, because you're never wrong with a tie.

St. Nicholas Day

When I was a high school exchange student in Basel, Switzerland, I celebrated my first St. Nicholas Day, or Nikolaustag. I had four younger host siblings, the youngest of whom was just shy of seven, and a host mother whose favorite holiday was Christmas. Every night during the Advent season, she gathered the family after dinner to sing Christmas carols and read a story from the piles of Christmas-themed children's books she pulled out every year.

One night, there was a knock at our back door. My youngest host siblings, Susanne and Stefan scrambled to the door. They knew who was there. I was surprised when I saw who appeared to be Santa Claus walking into our house. He sat himself down on a stool, laid a large sack on the ground and pulled out a leather book. Us kids lined up and one by one were instructed by St. Nick to tell him three good things we had done, which he compared with his notes in his book.

My youngest siblings were so excited they could hardly control themselves, the oldest was slightly bemused, but acting more mature than your average eleven-year-old, went along for the sake of his brother and sister, and then there was I who was still trying to sort out this St. Nick tradition and what the heck I was supposed to say. It's not that I was lacking examples of good behavior or deeds, it's just put on the spot with my entire host family watching, (and at the point some curious neighbors who'd stopped by - apparently St. Nick was jointly hired by a couple neighborhood parents and was making the rounds) I was at a loss for words, especially ones in a coherent German. My host mom, sweet as she was, fed me my lines. And I passed! Satisfied, St. Nick reached into his sack and handed us bundles of nuts, chocolates and Clementines.

The evening ended with a loss of innocence, though, when Stefan recognized the logo from a Swiss grocery store chain on his package of nuts and asked his mom why St. Nickolas was handing out nuts from Migros. Even before my host mother was able to offer up an explanation, the truth dawned on Stefan and he started crying. His older brother desperately tried to convince him that St. Nickolas was real, but that he'd just run out of nuts and needed to pick up some extra packages at the grocery store, but Stefan was nearly hysterical. And I could tell my host mother, who'd done such a good job to make the Christmas season a magical time for her kids, felt really bad and was kicking herself for not noticing that the packaging would be a giveaway.

At least my memories of that night are fond, even if that year was the only year I celebrated St. Nick's Day. When I lived in Germany, I lived in a dorm or on my own and it wasn't a tradition my family in the U.S. followed. But here in Minnesota I've encountered a number of people who not only know what St. Nick's Day is, but grew up anticipating treats or even a small gift awaiting them in their shoes on the morning of December 6.

Oliver must have been a good baby this year, because when he crawled out of his room this morning, he found a pile of Clementines and his size four shoes filled with chocolate coins. He thought the surprise was neat and enjoyed tossing the coins and the Clementines and tried taking bites out of each, foil wrappers or skin and all. Since he doesn't have any top teeth, he didn't make a dent in either.

I hope celebrating St. Nicholas Day is a tradition that sticks in our family. And though I don't think I'll ever go as far to hire a neighbor to come to our house dressed as St. Nicholas, I have learned from my host mother's mistakes and am sure to check the packaging of any treats St. Nicholas brings.

First Visit with Santa Claus (and the Mrs. too!)

Oliver didn't cry as hard as I thought he would while sitting on Santa's lap. Considering that he cries himself into all out hysteria whenever I leave the roam (he cries so hard sometimes that I fear the neighbors will hear and wonder what's going over here) that I thought a strange guy with a big beard and a funny outfit would be too much for him. But he let me walk him up towards Santa and Mrs. Claus and even set him on Santa's lap before letting the tears flow. We took the requisite pictures which captured Oliver either crying, stuffing his hand in his mouth or both.

"Kind of what I expected," conceded Chris.

"That actually went a lot better than I thought it would," I replied.

When discussing Christmas traditions, Chris said he really wanted to get a picture of Oliver with Santa Claus. While I didn't immediately veto the idea of taking Oliver to the mall, a look at the prices they charge for just one print was enough to convince Chris to skip that idea. But when I read on my moms group website about "Cocoa with the Clauses" put on by the Lions Club at the St. Anthony Community Center, I knew we had our compromise. Chris would get his picture of Oliver on Santa's lap and the event was free, which made me happy. We didn't have professional pictures taken, but they let parents snap as many as they wanted with their own cameras.

On our way out, I heard one mother lament to the grandfatherly Lions members staffing the table at the entrance that this would be her last year at Cocoa with the Clauses. Her daughter is in third grade now - the exact age I was when I probably had my picture taken with Santa just to humor my mom, not because I believed there was a magical man who flew around the globe on a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. That point will come with Oliver in a blink of an eye, but until then, I've still got a couple more years of photo ops. And maybe Oliver will warm up to Santa by then.

Christmas Traditions

I'm the type of person who's annoyed by stores putting out Christmas decorations by Halloween. Let me enjoy Halloween and Thanksgiving and then we can move onto Christmas. So I'm adamant about not doing anything "Christmasy" until at least the day after Thanksgiving, (for those of us in colder climates, I consider taking advantage of warmer weather to put up outdoor Christmas decorations to be a reasonable, and wise, exception) but now it's December 1, and well, let the Christmas season begin!

Growing up, my family never went all out for Christmas. We decorated a small tree, hung stockings from the mantle, placed a few decorations around the house and left the exterior bare, except for the occasional wreath. Although my mom liked the ambiance of a sparkling Christmas tree in a dimly-lit living room, my parents weren't into decorating, so that was the extent of it. The Griswolds we weren't.

As for traditions, they came and went depending the ages of my brother and me. Christmas was marked as little kids by photographs with Santa Claus at the mall and the Christmas pageant at Friends Meeting, choir concerts in middle school, the Christmas Cotillion in high school and the crunch of exams and semester-end projects followed by weeks-long winter breaks in college.

Some simple traditions stayed the same throughout most of my childhood. We came together as a family on Christmas Eve when we ate an early dinner at the Springhouse Tavern and then spent time at my paternal grandparent's house, where the adults opened gifts. (My brother and I were allowed to open one from my grandparent's - the rest waited until "Santa" brought them on Christmas Day.) Everyone reconvened at our house on Christmas Day. And by "everyone," I mean both sets of grandparents, my Uncle Gary, my parents and my brother. (This is when I really longed for cousins.)

Nothing compares to the excitement of early childhood when you believe in Santa Claus and hope that this year you'll be able to stay awake and catch a glimpse of him, or at least his sleigh and reindeer on their way to the next house. Waking up to see all those presents under the tree was a dream come true. But by the time I had entered my college years, Christmas had lost a lot of its magic. Everyone was busy with work or school and sometimes it seemed my brother and I were the only ones adamant about continuing "tradition." As an adult, I have more understanding of my parents and grandparents who'd probably grown tired of following every little tradition fastidiously year after year.

Having a baby gives reason to reclaim the magic of Christmas, and a new generation is an excuse to start new traditions. But Oliver was only three months old last Christmas and in the weeks leading up to the biggest holiday of the year, I was still rather overwhelmed (and tired) by motherhood. Despite it being our baby's first Christmas, it was anti-climatic. Oliver obviously had no concept that it was a holiday and he spent all the present-opening time under a cover for a marathon nursing session, so he never even saw us open his presents. The only pictures I have of him from Christmas are the ones I insisted Chris take of the two of us shortly after we put the tree up.

Looking back, I'm proud of what I did accomplish. We got the tree up, I managed most of the holiday shopping by myself, (thank goodness for the Internet!) we hosted Chris's family on Christmas Day, (thankfully one of their Christmas traditions is a light meal - sandwiches - on Christmas Day since they're still recovering from the feast on Christmas Eve) and I got Oliver and myself on a plane to Philadelphia the day after Christmas.

Even though last year ended up being about simply pulling it together rather than creating new Christmas memories, I've been given an extra year to think about what traditions to start. Every year I've been acquiring more decorations and look forward to when Oliver is old enough and we can make an afternoon or evening out of decorating the house. An advent calender, something I'd loved so much as a kid, especially the ones with chocolates, is a must-have for any kid and I forgot to get him one! Oops! Put that on the list for next year...We are going to a community Christmas party on Saturday, because Chris wants a picture of Oliver with Santa Claus, even though I know that's not going to go over very well. But all in the name of tradition, right? We never celebrated Nikolaustag (St. Nickolas Day) as kids, but after my time in Switzerland and Germany, what a fun and easy tradition to work into the season.

Chris also finally convinced me to get a real tree. We have a fake tree, which Chris hates, but I got it at a second-hand store and consider it more environmentally friendly than buying either a real tree, or a fake one new. Plus, you have to water a real tree every day and I hate vacuuming up needles. But now that Oliver is mobile, we need a tree we can tuck in a corner and barricade with a table and our fake one is too big. With a promise that we'll buy a small, skinny tree, we're headed to the St. Paul Farmer's Market this weekend to pick out our family's first real Christmas tree.

Oliver is still too young to understand Christmas, so in actuality, I have another year or two to build on whatever we do this year. I want to try a bunch of different things and see what sticks. Maybe some activities we'll just end up doing every couple of years when we feel like it, while others will become tradition. I'm sure there'll also be the traditions that are clearly more important to me than they will be for Oliver. But in reality, many traditions you don't realize are important to your kids until years down the road when they it announce it as their favorite Christmas memory - or until you suddenly stop doing them.

Even though Oliver is still very young, this Christmas is already more fun. He's much more observant and interactive, so I talk to him about Christmas and try to build the excitement even if I know he doesn't understand a lot yet. But he's already noticed our stockings we hung above the couch. I point out his stocking and explain that on Christmas morning he's going to be able to reach in his stocking and pull out treats and gifts from Santa.