Last night, we did Christmas here at home with our immediate family. Yes, that's a week early. In New Jersey, we started opening our presents to each other at home before we flew back to Kansas for the holidays. It didn't seem to make sense to ship our gifts to each other to Kansas and then ship them back again. Anyway, the tradition has stuck. And every evening of this week is busy, so this was the only night we could do it.
And we had a new twist to the tradition this year . . . our eldest's boyfriend was there, too. He was over studying with her for finals (and yes, I think they got at least a little bit of actual studying done), and he just ended up staying. She had been invited to go with his family to his aunt's earlier today, but they ended up not going. Still, they're only 15 . . . only been dating a couple months . . . and they're joining each other's families for minor holiday get-togethers. Ah, it begins.
I thought it would be weird to add someone to our holiday traditions. It wasn't. He's a good kid. We didn't have a lot of gifts to open this year, so it was kind of low key. We all played Eastin's new Monopoly Deal game afterwards (the gift she got for finding the pickle ornament on the tree), and then Apples to Apples. A pleasant evening.
In a way, it was kind of nice to add something new. I'm all for traditions, but I like to freshen things up, too. Kind of like how the Bible says to "sing a new song" to the Lord. The old hymns are awesome, but you gotta add something new to keep things . . . well, new.
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