Holiday Traditions
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 10:38PM 
This week, Zoe had her first “homework” assignment. It was a collage of our family holiday traditions. Since it was her very first project of {transitional} kindergarten, I helped a lot. Okay, I may have done most of it. Whatever. She’s 5.
As we were talking about it, I realized that when she thinks “Holidays” she thinks solely of presents – not of the zillion other things we do each year to “make memories.” Which would lead me to think I’m a horrible failure of a mother, if it wasn’t for the fact that she this is only her 5th December and probably really only the 3rd one she has any comprehension of.
And let’s be honest, December hasn’t really a shining month for me in the past… maybe it’s better she doesn’t remember much.
A few years ago in a desperate attempt to fight my December demons, I signed up for a scrapbook “challenge” of sorts - Journal Your Christmas – as a way to “take back December!” The thing is, I don’t really scrapbook. And I get a little OCD about crafting. But a store I had never seen before, Paper Source, had just opened by me and I needed an excuse to buy all that paper and to heat-emboss EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Amazingly, I actually got the book done {sometime in February}.But now every year, I know it’s the Holidays when I start getting my daily “prompts” from Shimelle.
But, if I learned one thing about myself, it's that I’m a really crappy scrapbooker. So how excited was I to hear about her Instagram photo version this year! That I can totally do.
The first assignment was all about “first signs” of the holidays in your area. How do you know when the Holidays are here. It was fitting that this prompt came in as I was at Disneyland, for a Holiday visit that has become a bit of a tradition for us.
As Zoe and I sat and chose pictures to use, her beginning to understand the concept of “tradition” – she chose the picture I took this past weekend of Sleeping Beauty’s castle all lit up for the holidays.
It was the same picture as I used for the first day of my challenge – first signs.
Because in Southern California THAT’S how we know the holidays are here. This is our Winter Wonderland.
