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Champagne, Bread, and Scissors, or How to Find Your New Year’s Traditions

posted 31st December 2011    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, What I've Learned

New Year’s Eve is never much of a thing in my mind. It tends to sneak up on me, so I forget to make resolutions. I also don’t like crowds – especially after doing the Times Square ball drop thing in 2001 – which seems to rule out a lot of typical December 31 plans.

Mostly what this means is that I attempt to spend the evening with a small group of friends. We’ll eat, drink, and be merry, and then we’ll count down to midnight, champagne, and kisses. (Unless, of course, we get distracted by board games or conversation and miss midnight, in which case we’ll count down to a random time at which we yell “Happy New Year!” This has happened to me more than once.) So basically, it’s just like many other nights with my friends, except that we’re usually drinking wine instead of champagne, and high-fiving instead of kissing. I do my best to avoid straying too far from my apartment on December 31, because the last thing I want to do is commute home on the subway at some crazy hour with a bunch of crazy drunk people.

Some of my friends have New Year’s traditions that I really like, so in the past, I’ve tried to incorporate some of those into my own life. One of my best friends makes her resolutions at Chinese New Year. The holidays are her busiest time of year at work, so she doesn’t have a lot of time for reflection in December. When I considered doing that, I inadvertently let Chinese New Year slip by as well and avoided making resolutions yet again. Another friend always says, “Start as you mean to go on“. I guess I kind of do that now, as I described above, but that saying always makes me nervous. Since I already get a little stressed out about making plans that won’t involve the subway or spending a lot of money, I don’t want to add any more pressure to the night. Another tradition that I tried last year with a friend was throwing pieces of stale bread – each one representing something negative that we wanted to toss away – into the Hudson River. We used a loaf of bread that I’d baked with dough that had been in my fridge a little too long, and I found the motion incredibly satisfying. As 2010 involved my break-up and other challenges, I had a lot of things that I wanted to release. The whole process felt cleansing, though I wished I’d brought more bread.

It felt like I was Goldilocks trying all of these out, and nothing fit quite right – until I read about someone picking a word for the year. When I first saw a blog post about doing that, though, the person picked a word at random from the dictionary. Of course, I only had a French-English dictionary at home, and I ended up with words like scissors and hydraulic. Would you theme an entire 365 days around scissors or hydraulic? Hell no. I decided to declare the following 12 months my Year of Awesome. And it was. I traveled somewhere every month, saw friends and family, had a great roller derby season, blah blah blah. I was sold.

…until the next year rolled around and I completely missed choosing something in time for January 1. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

That moment confirmed that in my mind, New Year’s Eve is just another night. There is one day each year that does feel significant to me when it comes to making life changes, though: my birthday. These days, I select the word that will carry me through the coming 52 weeks by August 4, my new year’s eve. Beginning on August 5, that’s what guides me. As I mentioned way back when in my very first post, courage inspired me to make big decisions from August 5, 2010 through August 4, 2011. I dug deep to find the strength to follow through with that, and it was well-worth it.

At the moment, I’m approaching my halfway mark for my year of flourishing. Today and tomorrow, I’ll spend some time reflecting on that…

…or, if we’re being honest, I’ll likely just have a few drinks and spend time being silly with my friends.

Wherever you are, Happy New Year! May 2012 bring you love, joy, and the strength to follow your dreams – and flourish.

[photo credit: me!]

Psst! Hey, you! Gorgeous girl! Down here!

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Musings on Christmas

posted 31st December 2011    Written by: Elyse    CATEGORY: All Posts, Elyse, Events, Family, Life Lesson, Season 5, What I've Learned

I’m taking the bus home for Christmas this year. I usually hate highway 75, because it is so stark in winter. A lot of flat farmland dotted with the occasional grouping of trees, there isn’t much to look at out the window on that ride. But, I do enjoy the ability to think and be by myself for a few hours because inevitably when I go home, I will be surrounded by friends and family, a window into my past. I’ve changed a lot since I moved to Cincinnati, but going home is always a sobering glimpse of the first 18 years of my life.

This year will be different. Grandpa died a week before Christmas last year, and Mom was battling breast cancer. Christmas was sad and not very magical. A year later, Grandpa is still gone, but the pain has gone away a bit, and Mom has been declared cancer free. Hopefully we can inject a little joy into the holiday this year. Dad moved to Pennsylvania and for the first time ever, I won’t see him Christmas Eve. I’ll be going by myself to visit his family while my sister spends Christmas with her finance’s family.

I embrace change every day in my life in Cincinnati, but in my hometown, time is supposed to stop. I see the same faces and have the same traditions, and that is a comforting thought because it is the one constant in life. Now that I’m growing up, everything from my past is changing as people move away, get married, rearrange their lives…I’ll still see family but not everyone. I’ll enjoy the After-Christmas party with friends, but some are married and pregnant and changing every day. Instead of going backward into who I was for a few days every year, I now am confronted with the fluid motion of our lives and forced to reconcile the fact that my life will be ever-changing all the days I have left.  This is how it supposed to be, and every year, Christmas will inevitably change just as the people who celebrate it do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{Photo Credit: Greatbeyond}

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Tis the Season for Traditions

posted 30th December 2011    Written by: Kristen    CATEGORY: All Posts, Events, Family, Kristen, Season 5, What I've Learned

For me, this year was all about a reset for the holidays in terms of traditions. Even for a family that loves celebrating together and remembering holidays past, we all took an inventory this year of what we wanted for the holiday and how we wanted to spend our time.

This year, my parents, in an effort to try to make things easier and downsize, decided to purchase a six-foot artificial tree. I am allergic to Christmas trees so for as long as I can remember, we have had a fake Christmas tree. My parents’ house also features a living room with twenty-five foot ceilings that is perfect for a large, grand Christmas tree so about twenty years ago, my parents purchased a fourteen-foot tree (that’s without the star). It takes all four family members together to get the Christmas tree up every year; part of that decorating is the same debate we have every year about the order the branches go on the tree, what color lights to decorate with (I always want white & usually don’t win), which garland color goes up first, and so on. The 14-ft. tree involved moving houseplants and furniture; my parents wanted the smaller tree to lessen the disruption of the house. It did not of course- the 6-ft. tree brought as much debate and discussion as the 14-ft. tree, except this year the arguments centered over the small size, not being able to put all the ornaments up, and where the presents would go. In the end, the new tree looks nice in their front window and represents the start of a new era in the Costa Family. Funny as it sounds, not having an argument about the Christmas tree would be a strange start to the holiday season- it has become part of the tradition for us, no different from the rule that “it isn’t Christmas in the house until Mom puts on her Santa hat.”

My mother and I spend the morning of Christmas Eve Day baking cookies to bring to the various houses we visit on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We used to make dozens and dozens of cookies- sugar, gingerbread, chocolate chip, peanut butter, and more. In the past few years, we have cut down on the number of cookies we make and stick to the Christmas favorites. While we still love baking together, each year there are more cookies left over than to give. This year, we stuck to the standards to cut down on our time and waste.

An evolving tradition in my family is when we open presents. When I was small, it was always on Christmas morning, but as we grew older, we frequently opened them on Christmas Eve because my mother often took Christmas Day shifts to cover for other nurses who had young children. This tradition of opening on Christmas Eve has continued now as we all enjoy the opportunity to sleep in on Christmas morning.

For me, this Christmas season has been about spending time on myself and with my family and friends, starting a new tradition to really be mindful of this special, magical time of year and not so much on the stress and bustle of the holiday season. Back in October I was worried I was going to be sad and lonely during the holidays, so I booked my schedule full of parties, drinks with friends, and crafts to make for gifts. Before Thanksgiving even hit, I was tired and wishing I could cancel on many things. And I did- and that was freeing to be able to say no to people to put my sanity and myself first.

I also tried to be mindful of my free time in regards to Christmas too. I was ambitious in wanting to make a few gifts and buy only a few things- it was tough at times, but I found the time to create the special items and buy the few things I needed. I decorated inside my house and cute little Christmas tree with the company of a special friend, followed by watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It didn’t involve a great deal of effort and took no longer than thirty minutes to decorate and put things on away, but the night was spent enjoying the special memories behind some of my ornaments and relaxing. The night was perfect and that will be a new tradition for me as I move ahead in life. I hung a simple wreath on the front door and did not decorate the outside of the house with lights because I didn’t want to have to be worried about it come January and have another item on my to-do list to stress me out.

When I was young, Christmas was always this epic thing involving toys, magic, and excitement. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to see the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, as an opportunity to reflect and celebrate the year. This year has an extra special element added to it as I embraced my new happiness and living situation with open arms. This year I created new traditions for myself as an adult that some day I hope to integrate into my own family. That idea is really exciting and so this year, while Christmas may be about slowing down and taking time for myself plus my dear family and friends, it’s also about a the beginning of something new and how uniquely me the holidays will be from now on.

[Photo Credit: My super cute Christmas tree!]

 

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Happy Whatever!

posted 28th December 2011    Written by: Laurenne    CATEGORY: All Posts, Laurenne

The Holidays!

The holidays used to make me sad. I’m an only child, so I would spend Christmas jealous of all the people with big families who would spend days together eating, gossiping, playing games, and doing what everyone with big families do (I have no idea– I just imagined it was a million times cooler than what I was doing.). With just my mom to celebrate, I would feel gypped, especially because it’s hard to play family games with two people. Go Fish can only last so long. My mom knew how I felt about our teeny family, so she started a tradition: traveling on Christmas! It lasted a few years. We went to Hawaii, Charleston, on a few cruises.

You’d never guess but that got expensive. And after too many delayed flights out of Chicago, we decided to reinstate a holiday at our house. I like it. It’s home. We drink egg nog. We leave cookies for Santa. We lay around in our pajamas and watch Christmas movies.

I’ve since realized that I may not have a huge family, but I have one person in my life who knows me more than any other. With my mom, I can be absolutely comfortable. We can reminisce and be honest and laugh at ourselves. Instead of feeling sorry for not having many people, I’ve decided to be grateful that I have one extremely unique relationship.

We started a new tradition a few years ago. Now, on Christmas Eve, we cook. We find intricate recipes we’ve never made before, shop for all the exotic ingredients, and spend hours trying to make them edible. Most of the time it works. This year it did! [Here's a short video!]

I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what you’re celebrating or what you do or the number of people in your party. If it’s something with the people you love, that’s all that counts. Happy whatever you celebrate!

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Learning to Create New Traditions

posted 27th December 2011    Written by: Ashley    CATEGORY: All Posts, Ashley, Family, Season 5

It seems like when I was a kid, each Christmas was the same. My mom, dad, sister, and I would head out one night in early December and search for our tree. We’d go to several different lots until we found the perfect one. Not too short, not too fat, not too skinny, and full all the way around. Then we’d load it up in back of my dad’s pick-up truck and make our way to a diner for a late dinner and some hot chocolate. At home, we would spend the rest of the evening hanging lights, ornaments, and tinsel.

On Christmas Eve we would eat tamales, rice, and beans, and then attend our church’s service for the evening. After church, we’d drive around town looking at Christmas lights, ooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing over the pretty colors. When we were back home, we’d turn on the TV to the special news channel that showed us where Santa was in proximity to our town. It was so exciting to know that he was getting closer and closer! Before we went to bed, my sister and I were each allowed to open one present, but it was usually something “boring” like pajamas or a book.

I always had trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve. I’d toss and turn in my bed imagining Santa flying through the sky with his reindeer and sleigh full of presents. On Christmas morning, my sister and I would run down the hall into the living room and squeal as we saw all of the toys Santa had left for us. At the risk of sounding cliche, it really was magical.

Sadly, as I’ve gotten older, Christmas seems to have lost a few of those traditions and some of the magic has disappeared with it. I associate some of that with the fact that my family dynamic has changed.

My parents got divorced when I was 18 and my father passed away when I was 23. Now that our immediate family is smaller, we try to spend holidays with grandparents and cousins who don’t live too far away. My mom has a fake tree now and it’s beautiful, but it’s not the same as the real ones from my childhood. We didn’t go to church this Christmas Eve, but chose to stay home in the comfort of our pajamas and watch a service on TV. There wasn’t any hot chocolate (though I’m not quite sure why) and it was one of the first times I spent Christmas Eve night at my own apartment rather than my childhood bedroom.

It has been difficult for me to adjust over the years, grieving over those lost traditions and learning to create new ones. When my mom, sister, and I were decorating our tree one weekend at the beginning of December, we began reminiscing about my dad. His sense of humor, his abounding love for Christmas, and our hopes that he could still be here with us. Of course holidays are always hard after you’ve lost someone you love. And I’m sure that’s part of the reason that Christmas feels different to me now than it did 15 years ago, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s also that we don’t have as many traditions.

Traditions are what create balance. They create rituals and time and memories. They give you something to look forward to and something to look back on. When they are gone, what else do you have?

I’m not sure what traditions I will carry on to my own family one day, but I know I want them to be full of magic. I’d love to develop new traditions too. Maybe there will be gingerbread house decorating and snow angel making! Anything is possible! I just know I want to create moments of hope and anticipation, memories connection, and traditions of love.

[photo credit: Me! Our Christmas tree, 2010]

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