New holiday traditions

[resonant]

Today the kidlet said, "I'm going to make a cone." So they did; they made it with green construction paper and tape.

"Now," they said, "I'm going to decorate it with an apple tree and a flower." So they did; they made them out of orange construction paper, and attached them with tape.

"Now," they said, "I'm going to fill it with nutmeggan treats. 'Nutmeggan' means 'really, really small,' if you didn't know." They cut tiny shapes of orange construction paper to be the "nutmeggan treats."

"Now," they said, "you have to take me outside so that I can fill it with grass, and flowers, if we can find any." Bemused, I did so, even though the wind was pretty fierce. We found dried blossoms still on the spirea bush, and they put those in there, along with some grass and a sprig of holly.

"Now," they said when we got back into the house, "it's time to hide it." And they put the grass-filled cone in the curve of the banister.

Doesn't that sound just like the sort of thing you'd read in one of those "Christmas of Yesteryear" type articles? Like, after playing Snapdragon, but before shooting down the mistletoe with a rifle, the family would decorate apple-tree cones and fill them with grass and nutmeggan treats ... They created a folk tradition out of nothing at all.

We'll have to do it again next year.

-----

If I owe anyone e-mail, please forgive me; the kidlet is the only one in the house who hasn't spent the past 24 hours throwing up. (They got their stomach virus out of the way over the weekend.)


edited 2019 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns

Comments

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. You make me want to have kids of my own someday.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's quite an adventure, if you overlook the minor drawbacks like frequent exposure to stomach viruses.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I teach, so I get a lot of that already. However, I can imagine that having a child for 40 minutes of the day is much different from having one 40 hours a day.

I know there are only 24 hours in a day, but sometimes it feels like 40...

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

dude. you guys get sick at your house all the time. what's up with that?

hope you feel better soon.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least this time it's in no way related to my sinuses. That's progress, wouldn't you say?

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

She's created a folk tradition out of nothing at all.

Cool! I remember when my ex and I first became parents, we came up with a handful of things that we wanted to do to handle the holidays and we called them 'traditions.' Imagine my surprise when my daughter, many years later, reminded me that we had to do such-and-so because it was a 'tradition.' The response that leaped to my lips was an indignant, 'That's not a tradition!' It was kind of humbling to realize that while this 'tradition' was just some bogus thing I once thought was a great idea, for her it was the real thing. I say definitely do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after, and so on. I bet you'll be glad!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I remember being terribly outraged as a kid when my parents would try to "break a longstanding family tradition" (i.e. not do something that we did last year).

You never realize, when you're a kid, how fast time passes for adults, and how easy it is to say, "Well, you know, we did that for five or six years; it's not a tradition or anything." To the kidlet, "five or six years" is "before I was born."

[mz-bstone.livejournal.com]

I love the rituals children create. I think there's incredibly good -- I dunno, spiritual growth? can't get the right phrase for what I'm thinking -- things that come from engaging in them.

Good for what ails you.

Be well.

B

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I think I have an intuition of what you're talking about. Kids sort of instinctively know how to make time stick, instead of letting it flow by in one fast undifferentiated stream.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I want to hug your kidlet. "Nutmeggan"... how did she come up with that?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. I defined "nutmeg" for her, and she listened to me with that expression of exaggerated patience that they get when adults are talking about irrelevancies, and then she repeated, " 'Nutmeggan' means 'really tiny.' "

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*adores your child*

(*altough adores own children more but them's the selfish thoughts of parents*)

[persephone-il.livejournal.com]

Your child is entirely too interesting. She is also very nifty. Yes, indeed.

Persephone, who really isn't a stalker, honest.

[kulfold.livejournal.com]

We have to have a birthday party every year in August for "floppy dog" a greying and truly unidentifiable cuddly animal who has a personality all his own (I have caught the cleaning lady talking to him when the house was, as far as she knew, empty)........ frankly, before you had children, who knew?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I used to participate in an online bulletin board, and there was a topic on "Things you never expected to hear yourself say until you had children." My favorite entry was, "I said, you wash the chocolate off that snake right this minute!"

[herdmentality.livejournal.com]

Oh! So adorable! ::warm fuzzies::