This is How We Do It

So here is the next installment of Daddy's Love Letters. Again, if you are just joining us, this is something that Roni put together for me one year for Christmas. It's an old pickle jar full of questions that I pull out periodically and answer here, for you dear reader. I also am writing these with the intention of someday printing them and putting them into some kind of book-like form for my children...this way they might be able to gain a little bit of insight into why it is that Daddy is the way he is...whatever that may be. So without further delay, here is the next category.

Tell about family traditions: Christmas, birthdays, graduations, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Easter, weddings, etc.

So, what are my family traditions? I guess I will go with what I did growing up first and then move on to what we do now in our own family.

For Christmas, I think I have mentioned before that we were not normal, yet we didn't really realize that for a very long time. I don't know for sure when it was that it started, our Christmas tradition. We would go to bed each Christmas Eve, and of course have great difficulty falling asleep. Once we finally did though, we would be sure to get up as early as possible for Christmas morning. In fact, we would get up sometimes as early as 4:30am to do our Christmas morning things. We always opened our gifts on the morning of, along with what we got from Santa. We would get up and one of us would have to go in and get Mom and Dad up so we could have our tree time. In Greenwood, this meant one of two things: either they were in one of our rooms, or whoever went to get them, had to face the temptation of looking at the red lights of the tree and seeing what had been left there by Santa, therefore getting to see what everyone else got, which was against the rules. In Snyder, we just went down the hall and get them. We would then have to sit in the hallway and stare at the red glow of Christmas tree lights, wondering what it was that they were illuminating. It was great tradition, and is one that I would like a great deal to carry on with my own kids, especially as my brothers and I are all grown and Christmas is a bit different now.

Birthdays were the days that we got to have whatever cake we wanted, and could have some friends over for a "sleepover." It was in the 7th grade when I first did this that I stayed up all night. For my girls now we invite over a few friends and family and have cake and open presents, and just try to make it a special day for them.

Graduations, really we just had family that came to see us, and we would spend the day not going to school and just getting ready for that night. None of us had to ever prepare any kind of speech for anything at the ceremonies, so there was nothing to pressing that needed to be done. That night we would go to our All-Night party and then try and sleep all the next day.

For the 4th of July, we would just get together and sit outside and watch the fireworks shows when we were in Snyder, and even sometimes in Midland we would go toward town and watch the shows. No big get togethers or anything like that on a regular basis really. The same is what we are doing now with our kids.

Thanksgiving was the day where we would all get together with Grandad and Marita, and the rest of the family, and we would watch football and the brothers and I would go outside and throw the football around and just laugh and have fun being together. Eventually we would eat Thanksgiving Lunch around 2:30 or 3:00 and then have leftovers for dinner like 3 or 4 hours later. These days, Roni and I are trying to figure out what we would like our family tradition to be. In the last couple of years we have stayed home for Thanksgiving. We're still working on this one.

Easter, we would always go to wherever it was that Grandad was appointed and spend the weekend there with them. We did egg hunts when we were younger, but eventually we just kind of played basketball, or football or whatever we could find to do. Since I now work for a church, we pretty much stay home for Easter now and invite whatever family members can or want to to join us.

For weddings, Roni and I, Brock and Jamie and Mom and Dad all had Grandad to perform the ceremony. Now that Grandad has passed away it seems to have fallen to me to do this. We tend to all get tegether and spend time just hanging out and having some fun before the wedding and then those of us not getting married like to hang out a bit afterward as well.

I can't really think of any other family traditions that we had, other than to drive everywhere we ever went for vacation. Dad hates to fly, so no matter where we were going, we were going to be driving to get there. Really I had my own tradition within all of that. I was usually fine on the way to where ever it was we were headed, but on the way home, I hated making stops unless they were absolutely necessary. You see, I hated the trip home because I was ready to be there. Let me tell you, that is one tradition that I hope to not carry on...and I'm sure that my own family is so very glad that it is not one of our traditions any more.

Well I guess that is about it for my family traditions. Peace and Love y'all.