Breaking Tradition

Don’t get me wrong…I love a huge gathering with extended family on a holiday as much as the next person, but for Easter this year, I lobbied hard to have a small, quiet get-together at our house. This was an uncharacteristic move for me; I love getting together with all of my aunts and uncles and cousins (as well as all of my husband’s family) during a holiday. Maybe I had a change of heart on this particular holiday because Grace has gotten sick on every Easter since she has been alive (on her first and second Easters she came down with nasty cases of rotavirus and last Easter she came down with a bad cold) and subconsciously I am hoping that maybe by changing things up this year and skipping the large family gatherings, we can keep her healthy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I feel like we spent Christmas rushing around the state like mad people, trying to cram in as much time with our respective families as we were able to while wishing we could just relax and enjoy the season. Perhaps it’s because now that I have a family of my own, I want to make our own traditions every now and then instead of participating in other peoples’ traditions. Whatever the reason, the thought of traveling (and we do have to travel, since we live in a different part of the state than our families) to visit our extended families on Easter weekend really didn’t appeal to me. In fact, I was actually dreading all of the rushing around and began daydreaming about what it would be like to spend Easter at home—we could have an Easter egg hunt with Grace, attend a church service or mass of our choosing, and then go home and have a nice, leisurely meal in our jammies if we wanted to. We could invite our immediate families down to celebrate with us if they wanted to, but if they had other plans, that would be ok, too.

I knew I would get a little bit of resistance from the hubby on this new idea, because he loves spending time with family as much as I do (and, one of the reasons I love him as much as I do is because he places such a high value on family) and I knew that his extended family was planning a large gathering on Easter Sunday that he would want to attend. So, when I introduced my idea of staying home on Easter, I was met with a little resistance, but after I explained my reasoning and repeated the phrase, “Just one holiday per year” several times, Aaron agreed to the thought as long as the three of us got to spend the morning alone and save our feast with the immediate families for the afternoon. No problem, says I.

So, this Easter, we’re breaking tradition and staying home and even though we are going to be preparing a meal for my parents and sister and brother-in-law (Aaron’s immediate family is attending the larger gathering), I am finding that I feel much less stressed out than I would be feeling if we were going to be going elsewhere for the holiday. And, I am very much looking forward to starting some new traditions with Aaron and Grace. Hopefully our new traditions won’t include any nasty viruses.