Your comment about how young moms and new moms participate differently in creating/hosting holiday traditions/feasts is very accurate. I became a mother in March of 2010, and it was just last year that I realized I needed to get all of my recipes for each holiday organized into one single binder. This is now called the Thanksgiving Binder and it includes every recipe for every traditional family food we make every year. Initially I felt so lame for taking so long to come up with this idea, but the truth is I just hadn’t needed to yet. We had usually been hosted at other (older) matriarch’s homes for various holiday dinners (my mom, my MIL, my older sister-in-law, etc). But now, as my children are slowly becoming teenagers and I am entering this very intense (but wonderful) season as an increasingly skilled mother with many demands, I realize that I am in charge of all of this. The menus, the baking, the decorating, the music, the traditions: every little thing is orchestrated by me. What a gift!
Love this post. My mom carried what few traditions & customs she did seemingly out of obligation. I would love to be able to create cherished traditions for my family, but I’ve got two little ones, a tight budget, and not much of an example to look towards. So I look forward to this series.
I appreciate the acknowledgement of young moms— it helped me to take the pressure off myself and appreciate the fact that I’m in the information gathering stage right now. It’s certainly tons of trial and error. But you’ve painted such a beautiful picture for me to look towards in this journey, and make it much less daunting. Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻
I feel the same. My first baby is 6 months and I and just feel like I’m waking up from the haze of new motherhood… only to suddenly realize the holidays are coming and I am completely unprepared! I was really starting to panic about how to ensure his first holiday season is special. It’s nice to remember that it’s okay to not have it all together at this point in his life.
Delighted to have discovered your substack through this excellent post. I think it's important to acknowledge (and I'm sure you will in future explorations of this topic) that modern mommy influencer culture gives a false impression of what "family traditions" and "decorating the house for the holidays" are supposed to look like for the average person (lots of bulk purchased color-coordinated "stuff" and perfectly curated activities). A lot of my parents' memories that they fondly remember from their childhood holiday celebrations are very scrappy, silly traditions (e.g. buying stocking stuffers at the convenience store after Christmas Eve Mass) and I hope to pass down *those* kinds of traditions to my children as well.
I’m a mom of 3 boys, so your comment above about the particular importance of these traditions for sons really struck me. Fortunately, I love being the keeper of the family traditions and truly get excited about this time of the year. I find it invigorating vs overwhelming. I think, in part, that has to do with the fact that my mom really did make a point of creating these traditions for us when we were growing up; while I do many things differently now, so much of my love for this time is thanks to her. My dad, who is almost 70, still insists on making and decorating Christmas cookies the way he did as a kid *because* that’s how his mom did it. My husband, on the other hand, came into our marriage with almost zero traditions/favorite foods for this time of year due to his own mom’s lack of interest in creating them when she was raising kids (which had to do with the fact that HER mom never decorated the house for Christmas, etc). To this day, my husband and his siblings do not even think to go “home” to their parents’ for Christmas. This kind of culture building is much more important than we think.
Yes, I’ve observed the same. It’s not like a moral failing or something to not have seasonal traditions, but I have observed that the families without them don’t seem to prioritize getting together once the kids are grown and moved away.
Yes, and I think that for various reasons, my in-laws just didn’t prioritize that sort of thing. But I really hope and pray my sons want to come home for the holidays when they’re grown, so it’s a priority for me for sure.
Great way to think about this! My eldest is now 13, but we’ve been in a reinvention season in terms of family traditions for 4 years since I married my second husband.
I am a remarried widow and my new husband is a
Catholic music director. We’ve been coming up with all sorts of weird traditions that really bring home that his job needs us all to cooperate. We have a Christmas Eve “picnic” in the church social hall between the 4pm and 7pm masses. We actually attend mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to watch Dad play. Holy Week is interesting and exhausting for all. Hahah. God is good.
I am also a music director's wife! We have been married for 13 years, and have five children. It requires some VERY unique traditions! I always tell my children that our life is one of hidden sacrifices: we sacrifice much as a family for the needs of our fellow parishioners. I tell them this is our secret gift that we get to give. Now that some of mine are getting older, they join their father in singing and in preparing for the Holy Sacrifice, and take it seriously our job to create the most beautiful music for Our Lord.
Love this! What a cheerful and motivating framing. I like to think of my big "Yes"es and give myself permission to say "No" to other opportunities in service to my big Yes. And even still, this time of year gets crazy!
We host an open invite dinner most weeks, a rotating crowd of roughly twenty adults. Humorously, Thanksgiving dinner, which we generally host, is often smaller than a regular Friday dinner. When we were newlyweds, my sister asked if she could bring a friend from college to our dinner, and we said, of course! It started a tradition, we now ask early about people's Thanksgiving plans, and invite anyone who doesn't have plans to share Thanksgiving dinner with us. Last year we had a friend from Mexico join us for his first ever American Thanksgiving! We had just met him at Halloween, he had just moved to our city and met friends of ours at church, and he got rolled in with family and old friends.
I guess that's the biggest takeaway I hope my kids have. Whatever and whenever we're celebrating, whom else could we invite? Who might be lonely or new or isolated?
I love that my first grader invites people walking their dogs or pushing strollers with kids to our weekly dinners. And sometimes they come!
Hello Lane, sorry to ask a questions that probably only concerns me here, but what would you do if you lived in the southern hemisphere? The short time I lived in England I felt the feasts and holidays made SENSE for the first time –not that they are meaningless when you live down here, but it is much easier, for instance, to connect with the themes of the Resurrection when literally everything is beginning to blossom and you can see baby bunnies and ducklings going around. Christmas lights are striking when everything goes dark at 4 pm, but you can’t have the same experience when you are in the middle of a heatwave and the sun is up until 8 pm. The liturgical calendar is fine-tuned to northern hemisphere seasons, which I think is great and admirable and beautiful, but it leaves me with a sense of mismatch and yearning. If you can spare a few minutes I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter a lot. Either way, love your writing!
Ok I've thought about this question and I have some ideas for you. First, I have followed Australian designers on Instagram for years. I love seeing how they celebrate Christmas with essentially a "4th of July" seasonal color palette. One thing that comes to mind with a midsummer Christmas would be using all the plants and flowers that Americans use on 4th of July to symbolize stars. So alliums and even hydrangeas can be worked into a star of Bethlehem theme. I also love seeing how Aussies are on the opposite side of the seasons with their gardens and decor. So when I am in the depths of winter they are in full bloom, and when late summer in California is hot and dry and stale they are just starting out with their growing season. Jenny Rose Innes https://www.jennyroseinnes.com/ is my favorite. Her house and gardens are lovely.
Your comment about how young moms and new moms participate differently in creating/hosting holiday traditions/feasts is very accurate. I became a mother in March of 2010, and it was just last year that I realized I needed to get all of my recipes for each holiday organized into one single binder. This is now called the Thanksgiving Binder and it includes every recipe for every traditional family food we make every year. Initially I felt so lame for taking so long to come up with this idea, but the truth is I just hadn’t needed to yet. We had usually been hosted at other (older) matriarch’s homes for various holiday dinners (my mom, my MIL, my older sister-in-law, etc). But now, as my children are slowly becoming teenagers and I am entering this very intense (but wonderful) season as an increasingly skilled mother with many demands, I realize that I am in charge of all of this. The menus, the baking, the decorating, the music, the traditions: every little thing is orchestrated by me. What a gift!
This binder idea is brilliant, thank you!
Love this post. My mom carried what few traditions & customs she did seemingly out of obligation. I would love to be able to create cherished traditions for my family, but I’ve got two little ones, a tight budget, and not much of an example to look towards. So I look forward to this series.
I appreciate the acknowledgement of young moms— it helped me to take the pressure off myself and appreciate the fact that I’m in the information gathering stage right now. It’s certainly tons of trial and error. But you’ve painted such a beautiful picture for me to look towards in this journey, and make it much less daunting. Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻
I feel the same. My first baby is 6 months and I and just feel like I’m waking up from the haze of new motherhood… only to suddenly realize the holidays are coming and I am completely unprepared! I was really starting to panic about how to ensure his first holiday season is special. It’s nice to remember that it’s okay to not have it all together at this point in his life.
Delighted to have discovered your substack through this excellent post. I think it's important to acknowledge (and I'm sure you will in future explorations of this topic) that modern mommy influencer culture gives a false impression of what "family traditions" and "decorating the house for the holidays" are supposed to look like for the average person (lots of bulk purchased color-coordinated "stuff" and perfectly curated activities). A lot of my parents' memories that they fondly remember from their childhood holiday celebrations are very scrappy, silly traditions (e.g. buying stocking stuffers at the convenience store after Christmas Eve Mass) and I hope to pass down *those* kinds of traditions to my children as well.
I’m a mom of 3 boys, so your comment above about the particular importance of these traditions for sons really struck me. Fortunately, I love being the keeper of the family traditions and truly get excited about this time of the year. I find it invigorating vs overwhelming. I think, in part, that has to do with the fact that my mom really did make a point of creating these traditions for us when we were growing up; while I do many things differently now, so much of my love for this time is thanks to her. My dad, who is almost 70, still insists on making and decorating Christmas cookies the way he did as a kid *because* that’s how his mom did it. My husband, on the other hand, came into our marriage with almost zero traditions/favorite foods for this time of year due to his own mom’s lack of interest in creating them when she was raising kids (which had to do with the fact that HER mom never decorated the house for Christmas, etc). To this day, my husband and his siblings do not even think to go “home” to their parents’ for Christmas. This kind of culture building is much more important than we think.
Yes, I’ve observed the same. It’s not like a moral failing or something to not have seasonal traditions, but I have observed that the families without them don’t seem to prioritize getting together once the kids are grown and moved away.
Yes, and I think that for various reasons, my in-laws just didn’t prioritize that sort of thing. But I really hope and pray my sons want to come home for the holidays when they’re grown, so it’s a priority for me for sure.
Great way to think about this! My eldest is now 13, but we’ve been in a reinvention season in terms of family traditions for 4 years since I married my second husband.
I am a remarried widow and my new husband is a
Catholic music director. We’ve been coming up with all sorts of weird traditions that really bring home that his job needs us all to cooperate. We have a Christmas Eve “picnic” in the church social hall between the 4pm and 7pm masses. We actually attend mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to watch Dad play. Holy Week is interesting and exhausting for all. Hahah. God is good.
I am also a music director's wife! We have been married for 13 years, and have five children. It requires some VERY unique traditions! I always tell my children that our life is one of hidden sacrifices: we sacrifice much as a family for the needs of our fellow parishioners. I tell them this is our secret gift that we get to give. Now that some of mine are getting older, they join their father in singing and in preparing for the Holy Sacrifice, and take it seriously our job to create the most beautiful music for Our Lord.
And yes...Holy Week IS exhausting!
This was so lovely, Lane! I teared up!
Thank you for putting me in the right frame of mind this season!
Love this! What a cheerful and motivating framing. I like to think of my big "Yes"es and give myself permission to say "No" to other opportunities in service to my big Yes. And even still, this time of year gets crazy!
We host an open invite dinner most weeks, a rotating crowd of roughly twenty adults. Humorously, Thanksgiving dinner, which we generally host, is often smaller than a regular Friday dinner. When we were newlyweds, my sister asked if she could bring a friend from college to our dinner, and we said, of course! It started a tradition, we now ask early about people's Thanksgiving plans, and invite anyone who doesn't have plans to share Thanksgiving dinner with us. Last year we had a friend from Mexico join us for his first ever American Thanksgiving! We had just met him at Halloween, he had just moved to our city and met friends of ours at church, and he got rolled in with family and old friends.
I guess that's the biggest takeaway I hope my kids have. Whatever and whenever we're celebrating, whom else could we invite? Who might be lonely or new or isolated?
I love that my first grader invites people walking their dogs or pushing strollers with kids to our weekly dinners. And sometimes they come!
Hello Lane, sorry to ask a questions that probably only concerns me here, but what would you do if you lived in the southern hemisphere? The short time I lived in England I felt the feasts and holidays made SENSE for the first time –not that they are meaningless when you live down here, but it is much easier, for instance, to connect with the themes of the Resurrection when literally everything is beginning to blossom and you can see baby bunnies and ducklings going around. Christmas lights are striking when everything goes dark at 4 pm, but you can’t have the same experience when you are in the middle of a heatwave and the sun is up until 8 pm. The liturgical calendar is fine-tuned to northern hemisphere seasons, which I think is great and admirable and beautiful, but it leaves me with a sense of mismatch and yearning. If you can spare a few minutes I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter a lot. Either way, love your writing!
Ok I've thought about this question and I have some ideas for you. First, I have followed Australian designers on Instagram for years. I love seeing how they celebrate Christmas with essentially a "4th of July" seasonal color palette. One thing that comes to mind with a midsummer Christmas would be using all the plants and flowers that Americans use on 4th of July to symbolize stars. So alliums and even hydrangeas can be worked into a star of Bethlehem theme. I also love seeing how Aussies are on the opposite side of the seasons with their gardens and decor. So when I am in the depths of winter they are in full bloom, and when late summer in California is hot and dry and stale they are just starting out with their growing season. Jenny Rose Innes https://www.jennyroseinnes.com/ is my favorite. Her house and gardens are lovely.
Love this. Can’t wait for the rest of the series :)