I love Christmas! I confess! The mere thought of Christmas is infused with family traditions in our house. Traditions actually provide the perfect opportunity to keep the family’s legacy going, from one generation to the next. They are a moment in time, one that creates a meaningful memory, some on purpose, others unintentional, but, nevertheless, totally carried over. From the silly to the sentimental, we usually include them in our holiday activity plans. Does your family have any traditions? What is one of them? I would love to hear it!

One of the newest traditions is putting up wreaths on the inside of the doors to the house. Around Thanksgiving, I had said that it is no secret in the familial circle that I love wreaths. I even wrote: I decorate all the doors in my house with wreaths, most of which I have made. That is a lot of doors, and I won't tell you how many lest you think I am crazy. There is a certain cozy feeling wrapped up in all that evergreen. It's such a simple thing, but it makes a huge impact. We started with one and started having a wreath-making party to make another and another and another... and just like that, a tradition is born.

On Thanksgiving weekend, we always get our tree. We go to a tree farm for the last two years, a tree lot as they have had an insect problem in the trees here. So to not spread the wealth, we chose to buy a tree that is not from the area. Anyway, it is a ritual. We get the tree and decorate it on Thanksgiving weekend. Traditions can be little things like this or big things, but, it is all the little things that pierce my heart when I think about home. Things we did as a family. It warms my soul to the very core. It makes me feel loved in so many ways. So, it was a natural progression when I had a family to carry forth some of those things and incorporate some of our own.

Forgiveness for the slight blur on the pickle picture. We have two pickle ornaments. We have one I have had almost my whole adult life and this baby pickle that one of the kids put in the tree a few years ago. Have you heard the legend of the pickle ornament, or as the tradition is known, Weihnachtsgurke, which literally translates to Christmas Eve Cucumber.

Weihnachtgurke was invented by a big corporation to sell more pickle ornaments. Woolworth's, the great five-and-dime store, started importing German-made glass-blown Christmas ornaments into the United States in the 1880s... Well, the laugh was on me, I guess. But,"What matters about a tradition is not the actual object, whether it's an ornament, a food, or a song. It's the people who participate in the tradition and give it life" source

All I have are my words, armed in my mind, written in pen, stand by stand. Oh, yes. Still by hand. It has a different feel. Altered not by keys, backspace, and delete, I write, erase, tear it to pieces and start all over again. And again.