Christmas Already ?

so, here's the deal. our tree is up. we put it up last night.

normally, i wait til after thanksgiving to put it up but that is clear at the end of november and it has always bugged me to wait that long because by the first of the year i'm full into cleaning and sorting and gearing up for a new year so i need my tree to be down. i always wish we had been able to enjoy it longer in the lead up to christmas but, i never put it up before thanksgiving because that is what we did in my home when i was a kid.

but, i have these friends here who decorate really early. the talk started a couple of weeks ago. out came the boxes the other night and up went one of their trees and a few lights.  i kept feeling like i wanted to put mine up but couldn't because it wasn't thanksgiving yet !

but then i got to thinkin'. i live in a country where christmas is in the middle of the summer. a country where you don't cook a turkey and sit in front of a fire, but rather, take a bucket of prawns down to the beach and try to stay cool. a country where thanksgiving isn't even a holiday ! i know, i know ... we still celebrate it with friends who are american or who just love celebrating being thankful, but still ... 

and then i got to thinkin' even further that my parents, from whom the don't put your tree up til after thanksgiving thing started, don't even put up a tree at all anymore !!!

so really, nothing about christmas is how it 'should' be for me anyway so why NOT put our tree up now and enjoy it for a couple of months ?? the conclusion i've come to is this ... while i'm in this country ... celebrating christmas in SUMMERTIME, i will feel free to put our tree up WHENEVER ! if ever we live in AMERICA again, i will revert back to the old tradition of after thanksgiving ...

maybe.

Corner View {Tradition}

Advent Calendars ... A tradition in many families now ... but in ours it goes back three generations ... and has a story ! Let me share with you an email letter my Mom sent to my children a few years back ...

It says ...

" A little story for my Grandchildren ...

Once upon a time there were three little girls who lived in a nice warm house on a nice cozy street. They loved holidays but they loved Christmas best. Christmas is clear at the end of December and it would have been very hard for them to wait, except for a special present that they got at the beginning of December every year. An envelope would come from a far away place called Germany, and inside it would be a special calendar that had doors to be opened every day. The picture on it was different every year, but there were always doors, with little numbers on them. A funny thing about this calendar was that it didn't have a door for every day of the month, it stopped, of all times, on Christmas Eve !

Every year when the calendar came, the girls' mother would hang it in the living room window, just at the bottom of the stairs. Then .... every morning, just after breakfast the girls would gather with their mother and, each in her turn, one would hunt for the little number of the day it was and, with excitement, ... open the door to see the picture inside. They would ooh and aah about the clever thing the door had revealed and would know that Christmas was one day closer. The best day of all was Christmas Eve, when there would be an extra special big door and inside they would find a picture of the baby Jesus, and would know that the next morning would be Christmas !

Well, the oldest of those little girls was your Nanny. The envelope was sent to us by Aunt Hester, my Grandmother's sister, who was a school teacher on an Army base in Germany. It was a custom that was part of the German Christmas tradition. I never knew another family who had such a special calendar in their house, it was something only our family had. Since it was so special, your Sabba and I always tried to find such a calendar, called an advent calendar, for our children to greet Christmas with, and that is why I have sent them to you, as well. Have fun waiting for Christmas, and know that you are the third generation of our family to have such a special treat. I love you very much, Nanny "

Every year, when my children receive their envelopes from Nanny and Sabba, I get out this letter and we read it ... and then I hang it with the calendars. Why ? Because, to me, the important part of tradition is the story behind it, the passing down of special things from one generation to the next ...

Looking forward to seeing traditions in more Corners ...