Holiday Fever

This week should really kick off the holiday season for me. Traditionally, the Christmas tree was always set up on the weekend after Thanksgiving in my family. It should be that way for me now. However, Roy and I still haven't bought a tree. Or those vile, devil lights that I must insist he hang up.
I have gifts for the kids already. Well...I'm still hunting down a pair of roller skates for Iliana but other than that, the Kickaroo Anti-Gravity Boots have been ordered for Cris and two National Geographic Telescopes are currently hiding in my closet. I hope the dang things work. Not that I can point out any constellations even if they do.
I have my own family now and Christmas is a time for me to establish old and new traditions with them. Its a time where everything is fun and exciting and sweet. When the air is cold and the days are gray and the house is warm. When my sister and I were kids my parents had a rule that we couldnt get out of bed before 7am and we could only get into Santa's stuff at that time. When they got up, we could open everything else. Santa always brought a really cool toy. Something that would provide hours of FUNFUNFUN. Whether it was my first Polaroid camera or my first Personal Cassette Player or my very first tape (Prince- Purple Rain). The stockings were always stuffed with fruit and nuts and little gifts wrapped up in paper. Things like flavored lip gloss from Avon or a Mad Libs book. Dang...Mom...er...I mean Santa even wrapped up packs of Wrigleys Juicyfruit to enhance the event.
I have no idea how my parents managed all of that considering they were so young and so poor, but I credit my mom with the fortitude to demand certain traditions and my dad with the skills to support them. My parents were both working full-time and going to school full-time so Christmas was really the only time we got anything new, but that just made it more special.
My kids get alot of new things all the time. All three of them. They have no idea what it is like to desire what other kids have. I do. But I'm glad that they don't suffer. Not that Roy and I are loaded, but we have more to give than our parents did, certainly. And now my parents have successful careers thanks to all the school and stuff that we endured growing up, so now they spoil all of us. Which is quite delicious.
The first tradition I set for Cris was when he was 4. I bought him his own tree with his own ornaments and I let him decorate it any way he wanted to. I won't lie. It was partly to keep him away from MY tree. But he loved it and it continued. When Roy and I married, I got Iliana her own little tree with her own ornaments too and now we set aside a day for them to sit down and decorate their trees together. Someday Peepers will have a tree. For now he will have to be content with trying to eat their trees with a mouthful of gums and two chiclet teeth. That should be enough excitement for him anyway. Thank God he can't walk yet.
I'm looking forward to a big Thanksgiving meal and a relaxing weekend with my husband in which I can torture him by forcing him to roam the aisles at Lowe's and string flashing lights across the front of our house. Now that we HAVE a house, we can start this tradition and continue it until the end of time. Or until Roy says no, once and for all.