Tradition

I am a lover of Christmas. Come around August every year, I inform Blake gleefully that it’s almost Christmas (my husband is certainly not a Grinch, but the Yuletide season fails to evoke such strong passion in him). I’m not ridiculous about Christmas either- I don’t listen to carols all year long, or even all December long, we don’t have garish inflatable snowmen in our yard, and I don’t swoon over all things Santa.  I love Christmas because it is the start of the most unique period in the history of the world, the 33 years or so that Jesus Christ took on flesh, breathed our air, walked our earth. If we didn’t have Christmas, we wouldn’t have Easter, and we certainly wouldn’t have any reason to celebrate. And boy, do we celebrate! Cookies, lights, songs, all of these are traditions. Tradition. That’s what I love about Christmas. I have so many memories of the little things we’d do every Christmas growing up, silly things, but we were so possessive of our traditions. We’d go to the same tree farm up in the mountains every year, scour the acres for the perfect tree, and all help cut it down before stopping for hot cider and a candy cane in the little shop. Then, every year, we kids would be sent to our rooms while Mom and Dad had a big fight trying to set the blasted tree up. Hanging ornaments was like seeing old friends. Stockings (funny how the tiniest of gifts is something amazing simply because it is pulled from a sock). Candles. Eggnog. The glee of watching the UPS truck stop in front of our house. And, of course, the nativities. There was the cloth (entirely kid proof) set, the really fun one made out of wood blocks, and my absolute favorite, the one etched into the crystal slabs that we were never allowed to touch; all of them are special and completely unrealistic (having had a baby six months ago, I am sure that Mary and Joseph didn’t look so clean and serene). I wonder if I had requested that little figurines of me, Blake, our baby, and all of visitors in the hospital be crafted, then arranged them on a table on each of Rory’s birthdays; we would relive how exhausted we were, how I desperately needed to put on some makeup, and how awkward nursing was. I could pull them out when she is a cranky teenager and one look at the little face would remind her of all we suffered for her! But nonetheless, I love nativities, and I love Christmas, and am looking forward to continuing Blake’s and my fledgling traditions (creamed eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, decorating our bust of Apollo) with our little cutie pie on her first Christmas.

A Bowen family tradition

Apollo, Christmas 2008