The Gift of Tradition

Today I'm taking the day off as a "Personal Holiday." Some refer to it as a "Mental Health Day" or PTO(Paid Time Off) or Vacation time. Whatever you want to call it, I took it today. I feel that the Mental Health Day is more fitting simply because if you don't take one every once in a while, you will in fact, become a Mental Patient. So, here I sit, staring at my computer, much like I would if I were at work right now. Kinda funny!

I read Joseph's Blog just a few minutes ago and it got my mind wandering back, thinking of all the traditions my family has, had, and the ones Kim and I have started. I look back at how we used to go over to my Pawpaw's house, before he passed away, and enjoy either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day with him and Aunt Betty, Uncle Jimmy, and cousins Brad and Darin. We always had such a good time. I remember sitting close to the front door, on the floor, simply because there wasn't enough room for me on the couch, and I could always feel a little draft of cold winter air coming through the bottom of the door jam. I always remember the laughs and the simple, yet very meaningful gifts we all would receive from Pawpaw.

I then began to think of Christmas Eves and Christmas Days spent at a little house in Electra, known as Mawmaw's House. We would go nearly every year on one or the other of the days and I remember the house always being PACKED with Duttons. If you've ever seen our family, you understand. Picture putting all of those people in about a 40ft. x 40ft. square and you will get the picture, it was PACKED! I remember the smell of food in the kitchen, the heater that I always sat by, where you could smell just a hint of natural gas, and the occasional drift of putrid cigarette smoke when the front door was opened. Though those smells, besides the food, often got on my nerves, I find myself wishing I could experience them all over again. Putting together puzzles with cousins, sitting and talking, and getting that sometimes random, but again VERY meaningful gift from Mawmaw.

I think about the more recent times spent on Christmas Eve with Joe, Barbara, Joseph, Jason, and the boys; us wrapping gifts, setting up the Christmas Express Train around the HUGE tree with hundreds of ornaments. I think back, us not seeing Joe for sometimes hours and then seeing him walk in the room with a HUGE smile and a pile of gifts, freshly wrapped by none other than him. I remember Barbara telling us stories of each ornament on the tree. I was always in awe that each one, though how insignificant it seemed, had a story of love, laughter, and life within it. I can thank Barbara for a new tradition that has been started in the Lynn and Kim household. That would be the opening of a "Christmas Eve Gift." I couldn't make Kim sit there, suffering while the Ouellette's opened a gift and her not get to open one from me! She's not spoiled or anything!!

I was then led in my thinking to Christmas Day at my mom and dad's. It's always a time of joy, a time of mixed family(Dutton and Anderson), always a time of laughter, the occasional tear, giving, and a HUGE mountain of trash left from all the day's gifts given. It's a time of noise! A time when someone, inevitably gives a noise making gift to a child who then bugs EVERYONE with it. Though sometimes annoyed by the sound, I look forward to it every year.

I think of the traditions started in our life together, in our little apartment, with our little family and I thank God every day for them. It's a mix of Kim's family and mine. Kim opens her gifts and then I open mine, so that we don't miss out on the greatest gift given every year. The gift of giving. Though we don't have many traditions yet, I know that as our family grows, we too will form those traditions that will so seamlessly mold together with the current traditions we share with our family and friends.

-approved by Farley Wells, CMDI. who is looking to see if there's a gift for him under the tree yet.