Of a Few Final Gifts

Today, our family celebrated a vague rendition of Three Kings Day - which really had none of the aspects I had originally hoped for, other than opening presents.  But it was a good day nonetheless.  Watching our children, bathed in morning light, enjoy the few remaining presents (a couple from us and those which arrived via postal service from my family in the weeks surrounding Christmas) residing under our tree, and taking the time to be slow and extract each toy from its packaging as it was opened, giving them something to do as they waited for everyone else, was quite enjoyable.

It was also interesting noting their differences in attitude and/or age as Micaiah, throughout the day, took the time to play with each individual gift - moving from one to the other and back again until every toy had been thoroughly explored.  Meanwhile, Emmett spent a few seconds with his newly acquired playthings before resorting to old favorites (or trying to hijack sissy's toys - another favorite activity of his).

Either way, enjoying the child-like simplicity of "Christmas" morning for one final time of the season was the best gift of all.

A few favorite photos of the morning:

Of Making Traditions

One of my favorite things about having a family of my own: getting to make new traditions.  I love it when my husband and I decide to make homemade pretzels, knowing that someday our children will reminisce about days like these (assuming, you know, we're still making pretzels by the time they're at an age they'll remember).  I love spontaneously making monkey bread or donuts for Saturday morning breakfast - it's little moments like these that are the most cherished.

And I love that with the holidays come new opportunities for us to establish how our family will celebrate.

We decided before Micaiah's first Christmas that the only gift our children would receive each year from Santa Claus would be a book - because I love to read and I hope our children will, too.  Also, they will receive every Christmas Eve pajamas for them to wake up in on Christmas morning.  I always begged EVERY year to get to open just one gift on Christmas Eve and was never allowed.  So now that I'm in charge - my kids will get to do what I never did.  Even if it's just pajamas, I hope they'll enjoy this custom.

This year marks the beginning of a new tradition that I truly believe will come to be very special for our family.  Recognizing that we love to spend time with family and will, therefore, rarely ever spend a holiday apart from any extended family, we've come up with a way to have our cake and eat it, too - to be able to enjoy Christmas with family, but then also have our own distinctive celebration with just us.

We will be incorporating the tradition already implemented in various cultures world-wide of celebrating Epiphany- known as Three Kings Day in Spain and other Latin cultures - which commemorates the day the Wise Men actually visited the Baby Jesus, representing the revelation to the Gentiles (as non-Jewish people) of God's Son.  Thus, on the Saturday after New Years we will have our own family celebration.  Borrowing ideas from various friends our children will receive only three gifts, so as to represent the three gifts given to Jesus by the Wise Men: one Spiritual, one practical and one frivolous.  Who knows, I may even break out the culinary skills and bake us a little Rosca de Reyes!

I look forward to the years ahead when our children have a special tradition that's just ours - teeming with meaning and a little bit of culture, too.