Nov292008
it was a great day…
Filed under my life by sherriknits at 12:17 am on Nov 29 2008
Did you have a nice day yesterday? We had a low-key dinner. This is what our table looked like before we gathered around it to eat.
There was way too much food and just enough laughing and love to share. We had my mom and Ben & Brittany here with us for the meal.
After dinner, the rest of the kids came over and we ate dessert and they drew names for Christmas.
I am getting more and more to the point that I want simple and less stress. Yesterday was that way and I am hoping we can pull it off for Christmas. I don’t feel inclined to make myself crazy and lose the whole spirit of Christmas.
I’m struggling, though…we’ve always bought our kids pajamas for Christmas day and a few years ago we made the rule that anyone here wore jammies all day. It always worked until the kids all started scattering and it isn’t the same fun for them. This is fine and this year I told them I wasn’t going to buy everyone new pj’s. The problem is that I can’t stop looking at them. My own kids say they will miss it and Rhianna said she’d be buying them for her own family.
In a way, it’s kind of fun to be in a new season and make some new traditions for the 3 of us left here at home. This is Ben’s last Christmas here at home but all he does is sleep here now anyway…lol. So this year feels like limbo and maybe over the next year we’ll think about what we want it all to look like from now on.
Ha! I think I’m seeing that having the girls get married 10 months apart and Ben following this next summer has been a shock to my system. I am so grateful, though, that God has helped me adjust to changes. In the earlier years, I was one who could have been very clingy and resistant to change. I recall that very clearly one day, God spoke to me in a way that changed my perspective…my kids were young and like a thunderbolt I realized that this little time of them here in our home was just a drop in the bucket in their own lives. They would grow up and move on and build their own lives and their own homes and though we would be part of it…this isn’t “it” for them. Wow!
Little did I realize that I would need that realization when it all started happening. It has helped me to see that they need to establish their own traditions and decide what they want their own little family holidays to look like.
This has been so freeing to me! Ben has always been the one who is so into tradition, but it will help him build his own. We’ll be here for them and enjoy the new day to come and fit into it. At the same time, we need to establish something for ourselves so we aren’t lost and trying to hold on to what was.
Ahhh, enough of that. I can’t get online so this is all written on livewriter…have never tried inserting pictures this way so we’ll see how it all works. 
Hope you had a great day yesterday, full of thanks giving and that this season ahead brings you all you hope it will.
I am thankful for food on the table, a roof over our heads, family to love, God who loves us, great friends and a dishwasher to wash the 4 full loads of dishes I did yesterday.
Tags: my life. family. grateful. holiday
1 Lauraon 29 Nov 2008 at 6:43 am
Happy you all had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was good and low key too. When you spoke of change boy does that hit home. I have NEVER liked change. When Jonathan was born that was the beginning of loads of change, then when Arthur got cancer…my world was rocked, change has become my way of life now. (funny thing is Arthur is a fly by the seat of your pants type, opposites do attract) I still don’t embrace it, but I also don’t dig my heels into the ground. I have become very fluid. My newest fear is how will I let go??? Elizabeth is almost 17 and I see the day coming WAY TO FAST! I hope I can see it as you do a time for us all to create new tradtions….the past 16 years has gone by way to fast It seems they are growing at times faster than I can take it in. This is when I’m so very thankful that I’m not the one in control, I’m to shepherd them but “HE” is in control!
Sorry for the super long comment, you seem to always strike a cord with me…like minded. I glean so much from you and in such a short time…THANK YOU!
2 Theresaon 29 Nov 2008 at 2:09 pm
Our Thanksgiving was pretty simple and we have an extremely simple Christmas, much more than most people. Honestly, there are some things I miss from my childhood traditions but it is also freeing to spend time with people, with church family, with focusing on the reason God sent his Son, which technically has nothing to do with any of the things people traditionally do at Christmas. Some things were really hard for me as the kid who left – I don’t like big changes, though as I grow older I’m learning to look at them as adventures instead of disasters. But it was hard for me to leave my family and start building different traditions with my Hubby too… even though that is a fun time. I imagine that your girls may be experiencing some of those feelings though not as strongly as you. And I’m sure that they are excited to incorporate many of the things you did that made the holidays wonderful for them. I think it must be another little grief process – but your realizing it will help. It’s worse if you feel just kind of sad or dragging and can’t pinpoint why. Maybe it’s time to think of a new, non-stressful tradition to start for you and Hubby!
) I know it’s easy for me to say, I’ve got many years to go still – and I’ll be so old then, it will probably be easy to let go of some things! LOL Thank you for sharing the honesty of your feelings!
3 Melissaon 29 Nov 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’m so glad you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’m sure all of the changes are going to be a huge shock to your system. Every year growing up Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner were at my great-grandmother’s house. She’s been gone for 6 years and even now I get all upset on Thanksgiving and Christmas that I don’t have to go over there. But I do love our new traditions.
4 Vickion 30 Nov 2008 at 11:09 am
I like the way you put that…the drop in a bucket thing. So true. It came crashing down and squashed me with my oldest. The other 3, not yet, and after experiencing #1, they too, are careful about it. Sounds a little convoluted…that’s us!