Since I've been a blog slacker over the holidays, I thought I'd combine a few posts into one and share with you a few of our holiday traditions. Not in the normal, make-cookies-for-Santa or act-out-the-nativity kind of way, but unique Aagard family traditions...
We've lived in our house for 2 1/2 years, so this was our third Christmas here. Our first year, Michael and I drove past a neighborhood with a very sad display of Christmas lights. It was obvious the person responsible for the display did it only out of a sense of obligation or as a result of someone's constant nagging. We've seen some bad tree-wrapped-in-lights jobs before, but this one topped the cake. The best part about it is that it's the entrance to the neighborhood, not someone's yard, so it really looks bad. Michael's comment captured it all: "Now that's just lazy!" Ever since, we have purposefully sought out this neighborhood to get a good giggle out of the lack of effort put into their decorations. Each year the display got worse, and this year we just had to pull over and get a picture:
Seriously, folks. At least the first year we saw it, they had real Christmas lights wound around the tree. This year they went with one long tube of lights (that looks tacky no matter how you use it) and ran it from the sign up into the tree. I think the only effort put in was the one loop you can see to the bottom right of the tree. Someone had to take the time to do that. I'd say this job took a total of 5 minutes. I love that instead of canning the whole thing, they actually get out there for 5 minutes to put this up. Where can I meet the president of this neighborhood association to find out the motivation behind this? We can't wait to see what they do next year...
We are also intrigued about a fellow neighbor's tradition of Christmas decorations. There is a house up the street that has these gorgeous wooden silhouettes of nativity characters that they put out every year. Not that unique - lots of people do something similar. Although this set is obviously hand-made and very elaborate. When you drive past the house, you can get a little confused, unless you're paying attention. The house in question puts out a traditional nativity scene on their lawn - cows, sheep, shepherds, manger - illuminated with flood lights, yet no Mary, Joseph, or Jesus. Odd. You have to continue driving a little further down to see that Mary and Joseph are in the neighbor's yard across the street, also illuminated with flood lights. Mary is pregnant and riding a donkey, and Joseph is guiding the donkey. As it gets closer to Christmas, Mary and Joseph move into other neighbor's yards, approaching the manger scene. They make it to the manger on Christmas Eve, and that night, Mary is no longer pregnant, but kneeling at the manager with Joseph, a baby laying in it.
Then, the day after Christmas, new characters appear in the surrounding neighbor's yards. Coming from a different direction than Mary and Joseph had traveled (and I wouldn't put it past these guys to have them officially traveling from the east...), the wise men and their camels start making their way to the stable. These too are always illuminated with flood lights and move closer each night, making their way to the scene on New Year's Eve.
Awww, what a beautiful message. What a wonderful way to remember Christ's birth. But of course the cynic in me (and my dad, who is also perplexed by this tradition) begs the following questions: Did the family that orginally came up with these elaborate plans ask their neighbors if it was ok to put various Christmas decorations in their yard at various times during the month of December? If so, did said neighbors agree to fit the bill for the flood light charge when it was their night's turn? Who is responsible for moving these characters toward their final destination? The manger family, or each neighbor as he moves them out of his yard and into his neighbors? Do all these neighbors secretly hate the manger family and wish they would move, rolling their eyes each December as white, wooden figures make their way into their yards? Or are they all in on this in a spirit of neighborly love and look forward to their turn with the silhouettes and the flood lights? And most perplexing of all, how do these characters cross the street? Is there a silhouette crossing guard? Do they hold up traffic? If it takes them an entire day just to go from one yard to another, they'd have to have some assistance getting across the road, right?
This past year, our family started the tradition of "the funny box" - a recipe box that I filled with blank squares of paper. Each time someone in our family says or does something hilarious, we run to the funny box to document it. Each entry includes the date, time, and context of the funny situation. We read these aloud to each other as we welcomed in the new year. We could hardly even understand each other because we were laughing so hard. And seriously, it's not even like the stuff we wrote down was that hilarious, it's just that hearing them all in succession when you're already tired has some kind of effect on you. It was a fun tradition that we are continuing this year, and helps us to remember that we really do have fun together as a family.
One of my favorites (that's blog-sharing appropriate...):
One night in June, while Shelley was laying out sick on the couch in her first trimester, she asked Michael to make her a pb&j sandwich. Michael, while walking into the kitchen said, "Just wait until I'm pregnant. Then you'll have to pay!" And while reading this, I was reminded how long you really are pregnant - FOREVER!
Finally, on a more serious note, each year we have a "goal setting" FHE the first Monday of the year. This year was the first year we actually involved Shaelyn, so Michael had the great idea of drawing pictures of our goals. I helped Shaelyn with hers (and as you can see, I'm no artist), but I thought Michael did a great job of drawing our family goals.
Shaelyn's goals include learning 12 new primary songs (one a month), learning to share and take turns, staying in her bed, cleaning up her toys, and being a good example to her little sister.
Our family goals include planting a garden, reading our scriptures as a family every day, inviting an investigator or new member over each time we feed the missionaries, setting up a savings plan, and going to the temple 3 times (we were trying to be realistic, knowing that we won't even be trying to go as a couple before Rachelle turns 6 months old...) We hung Shaelyn's goals in her room and our family goals on our fridge to help us remember.
Later, Michael and I set some goals as a couple and individual goals for ourselves. This year, we added the tradition that Michael and I could list one goal for each other to work on this year. So far, I've already slacked on a few of my goals: blogging twice a week and not putting my Sunday School lesson off until Saturday night. Oops! But I have a whole year to get better at it, right?
