Christmas Advent-tures

My wife loves Christmas traditions. She started one tradition the first year we were married.

That was to buy a new Christmas tree ornament each year. It sounded like a good idea to me so we went to the Hallmark store and bought "Our First Christmas, 1978". The next year we purchased one for her and one for me. The following year our first daughter Amy was born and we ended up getting three, which included "Babies First Christmas".

Now I'm no expert on exponential acceleration, nor am I a rocket scientist, but it didn't take me long to figure out the the increasing expenditure for Christmas Ornaments was going to be something akin to my annual cost of living pay increase.

It's now 29 years later, and our Christmas tree is beautifully adorned with individualized ornaments that number in the hundreds. I'm not going to even tell you what happens when the kids get married and grandkids start showing up. I checked with my banker and he said I'd be better off to amortise a new BMW. I suggested a family council to broach the idea, and after 29 wonderful years of marriage learned that traditions are 3 pegs higher on Mazlo's Hierarchy of Needs than food, clothing and shelter. I researched this a little further and found out you can get some pretty good rates on 2nd mortgages.

Another tradition was started after my wife completed sewing the beautiful felt advent calendar. This one has a Christmas tree with negative Velcro. On the bottom of the calendar are neatly crafted pockets that hold special felt emblems of yuletide. You know— like Santa, a star, an angel, a dove and a gingerbread man with a missing eye. Each of these festive characters has positive Velcro sewn on the backside. You get the idea.

Each year the kids have the opportunity to fight, yell and argue about who's turn it is to stick the Velcro-backed daily-decoration on the advent Christmas tree.

This year was no different. As I walked into the kitchen to graze on some German chocolate, mixed nuts and a Clementine. It was was so comforting to know that the advent calendar tradition lives on.

I had holiday dejavu as I heard the kids Amy 27, Brad 25 and Heidi 20, argue about who's turn it was. Circumstantial evidence suggests the firstborn may have taken two turns in a row.

Happy Holidays and may the joys of Christmas traditions never end.