Traditions

I've been thinking a lot today about traditions. In lots of areas in my life I'm not very traditional at all. In many ways I actively avoid 'tradition.'

However, kitchen activities and holidays are exceptions to this tendency. I'm rather traditional when it comes to baking and holidays in general, and winter holiday/baking in particular. This year, since we have done virtually nothing for the holidays beyond getting a small tree (said tree has only lights and a topper, no other decorations), Christmas traditions have been jammed into this week. Which has been sort of nice, actually. I'm only good for about a week of Christmas anyway before it turns into annoyance with the whole thing. We didn't buy any gifts at all this year and I loved it. That might be a new tradition in itself, actually.


But back to baking. Yesterday I baked molasses-cookie cutouts (from an old Good Housekeeping recipe, talk about traditional), and today I decorated them.

We also usually get new pajamas for Christmas Eve, and last year we started a tradition of having Chinese food also on Christmas Eve.

However, this year it seems they decided to stop making decent pj's. We couldn't find any anywhere (not that we looked all THAT hard). So we came home and looked for pj's online... again, nothing. If we liked them, they didn't have them in our sizes.

Oh well.

But, there happens to be a very good Chinese restaurant only half a block away from our new house. So I was able to walk over and get delicious vegetable fried rice and stir-fried string beans. Strolling in the rain, looking at pretty lights, feeling very happy about our new neighborhood.

That's a nice tradition.

I have to say that, being from Oregon, the fact that it's raining out this week is making me feel very cozy and homey. Usually it's obnoxiously warm and sunny here for Christmas and I hate it. This year it actually feels "right" and it's making a huge difference.

What other traditions will we have this year? Well, no gifts tomorrow (again, that's something of a relief). But we will have a fire. And we'll watch Christmas movies. I'll make a vegetable pot pie for our dinner, and we'll eat too many cookies.

Sounds perfect. For years I've been wanting to simplify the holidays. This year, because of other circumstances, it's happened, and I have to say it's everything I ever dreamed of and more (heh). No holiday stress! Only happiness. And cookies.