Dear Readers,
Thank you for taking time to read my blog, and thank you for the kind comments several of you have left on recent posts. The comments come to me as emails, so it’s easy for me to read them. However, I have not responded to individual comments because I don’t think my blog would generate an email to you in order for you to know I replied. And nobody needs another thing to remember to check online, so please know I read and value what you tell me when you leave a comment, and until I can say thank you in person when I see you, I am saying thank you now.
I recently purchased for myself a MeCourse by Jen Hatmaker on Parenting Tweens and Teens. One of my favorite parts of the course was what Jen said about the value of traditions, as well as her simple definition of tradition:
I decided to ask my family at dinner a few nights ago what they think our traditions are. Here’s the list we came up with:
1. Planet Smoothie on last day of school (today’s the day!)
This picture of Story was the first “last day of school” in Greenville, May 2015. Story wasn’t even in school yet, and the reason she is using an old Jamba Juice cup (from Naperville) is because I’m sure I was trying to save money by giving her a little bit of someone else’s smoothie. It’s funny how we change over time. Today, everyone ordered what they wanted and I pretended not to hear when the worker said the total was $44.
2. Sour Cream Coffee Cake on Christmas morning
3. Happy Birthday sign hung from the beam on each person’s birthday
4. July 4th ribs and fireworks with friends
5. Village Church Baptism and BBQ at the lake
6. Village Youth Lake Day
7. Advent countdown with Christmas books
8. Morning time - MEMORY WORK!
9. Milk Bar cake on Mother’s Day
10. Super Bowl and Lou Malnati’s pizza
11. Bojangles biscuits with OJ on some Saturdays
12. Watermelon and Stacy’s pita chips (Several years ago, TJ came up with this combination because it reminds him of the childhood food he ate known as Rollkuchen. Cash was shocked to learn during our traditions discussion the other night that not everyone eats watermelon and pita chips together.)
13. Veggie tray on the table every night at dinner
14. TJ reading Great Joy (through tears on that one page) to our family every year before Christmas
15. Easter meal with friends.
16. Deep fried turkey at Thanksgiving
17. Opening stockings first on Christmas morning
18. Beef tenderloin at Christmas (We are only two years into this tradition because how did we not know about beef tenderloin earlier?!)
Who wants to think about Christmas right now, though? Not me. Give me summer break and the lake and waterskiing and ribs and the sun sun sun. My personal tradition is making a point all the time (even on this very rainy day) to ask how the sun, 93 million miles away, can make me feel this happy?
Love,
Ginger, who drank a smoothie today - yes I did!
