Christmas Traditions

I am sitting in the Phoniex Airport Terminal D, Gate 1 charging my computer and listening to the automated messaging system pronounce names like Najeet Pradmindovic, and thinking about Christmas. Kate and I are on our way to spend Christmas with my family in Oregon and have spent the last couple of days having Christmas with her family. Kate's family has many more yearly traditions tied to the holidays and she has been a little sad as some of those are coming to an end. There will be no opening of PJ's on Christmas eve or nut in the pie to see who gets to play Santa. Looking ahead we think about when we have kids and what that will mean for Christmas with parents. We want to start our own traditions and build on the past we have both experienced but at the same time it is really hard to see some of those traditions we have grown up with end. Difficult more so for Kate then me but still difficult. For me Christmas has been family for sure but not tied to a place, or to yearly traditions. We might give gifts, we might not. Christmas could be in sunny Santa Barbara or rainy Clatskanie but the house has changed just about every year. I think because of that I much more ready to start my own traditions with Kate while she is just starting to mourn the loss of what was. I mean it is still the end of something that you have loved. No matter what family fights sprout up or embarrassing scenes are played out it is tradition. We will see what it is we make as a family but as that legacy is built it is OK to be sad for what is lost. We honor it with our sadness, we look back and say this was good, this was mine.