Fall Traditions

I’m sure everyone knows that Sept. 22nd was the first day of fall.  We decorate our home with fall leaves and flowers and pumpkins.  Each year we let them pick out something for the house to add to our collection.  I buy a pumpkin pie and whip cream and as the pie cooks the house smells like the holidays and we decorate to music.  I love the holidays because of tradition.  The kids will know exactly what we do, when we do it and how the evening will feel and it reminds them of all the years before.  A real sense of family and belonging.  I could write for days on tradition, but I won’t.  Just that I love it.  When I grew up fall meant playing basketball with my Dad in the backyard.  We didn’t celebrate halloween and that always bummed me out a little.  But Thanksgiving was awesome.  It meant turkey and watching football with my Dad and then going to the backyard to throw the football around.  Christmas was amazing.  My mom made it perfect every year.  We always celebrated on Christmas Eve.  She made apple cider, pigs in a blanket, crackers and cheese and candles were lit everywhere.  For Rudy his mom baked all kinds of stuff.  We pass these traditions on to our children, I make sure football is on at Thanksgiving and we go out to play ball with the kids.  Christmas Eve we celebrate with my sister and I light candles and make the same things Mom made.  Spring is Easter and family and easter egg hunts and perfect weather.  Every summer I would go to Tennessee to visit friends and family.  I can’t afford to send my whole family to Tennessee every summer, but every summer I get homesick because for me it was a tradition.  Traditions stick and we add a few more to make them even more personal to my family while carrying on the ones we grew up with.  Well lookie there, I did rant about tradition.    I love it!  I’m so looking forward to the holidays and being cozy with my family and decorating for fall was fun!  Seeing their faces light up as they went to dig for the boxes of stuff with their daddy in the garage is priceless!  I could have used without Lauren asking a million and one times if the pie was ready yet.. lol, but it was still fun and she was so excited!