As we were watching the artificial tree dance in time to the music, it hit me that we have been busy growing real roots in this place without even realizing it.
We moved here a little over 3 years ago, and this is our 4th Christmas in our house and community. I realize that it seems obvious to most, but it feels like the passage of time is something you aren’t quite always aware of, and the idea that we have honest to goodness, relatively long-standing Christmas traditions as a family of three delights me.Traditions are good for kids, so the experts say. The Journal of Family Psychiatry looked at 32 studies of family traditions and found that they were “related to parenting competence, child adjustment, and marital satisfaction.”
Halfway through the light show, I noticed that the music and the show hadn’t changed one bit in the four years we had been viewing it. For a split second I may have thought that perhaps they should change it up, but I caught myself. What was I thinking? There is something to be said for familiarity and continuity.
My daughter and I spent three consecutive Christmas seasons in three different homes, and that wasn’t easy. When my husband and I married, we settled in together quickly, but that first Christmas celebrating as a trio was a new experience for us all.
That doesn’t mean that things never, ever change, of course. We were a little surprised tonight when we realized that the place we usually had dinner closed recently, but we quickly regrouped and went somewhere nearby. Even that minor venue change, it felt really familiar. While we stood in the 34 degree weather, we commented that it didn’t feel all that frigid and remembered nights when it was bitterly cold.
Things are never exactly the same, and I’m glad for that, but I’m also thankful that, for at least a little while now, things haven’t been radically different, either. It’s given us time to really plant ourselves. We have spent the past few years growing real roots. The tree this year is the same size it has always been, but this year it seemed maybe a little smaller to me. Perhaps that’s because our roots are allowing us to grow taller together.
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