by Lorraine Nyc

Created on: November 18, 2008   Last Updated: January 09, 2009

One of my biggest goals as a parent is to create lasting great memories for my son to carry with him. I imagine..or at least hope..that most parents feel this way about their children. One way I do that is to develop traditions of our own. We use traditions that most other people use as well, but there are some things I like to do just because they are very "us" in nature.

The main key here is to develop traditions around things we enjoy together so that they are not one of those things that the kids groan about having to do. I'm sure as a teenager, my son may groan about some of them, but at 7 he's pretty content. I encourage my child to believe in the idea of magic and wonder. For one thing, it lends a whole new angle to his imagination if I don't cloud it with a lot of boundaries. For another thing..umm...he's a kid? Isn't the idea of childhood to be a child and still have some awe and wonder? In my opinion it is.

I read a book as a child that gave me this idea actually. I can't remember the name of it, but it was quite good. One of my favorite parts of the book is when the father invents a "spy" which is a toad and lives in the attic. He cannot be disturbed and will only come around when no one else is around. Of course, his boots are parked by the door as evidence of his arrival and existence. To this day, I still think that's a wonderful idea.

I base some of my traditions on that very idea. I lend my son a small piece of evidence that potentially proves the existence of magic. The first time I did it was actually my attempt to keep my two year old from messing with the Christmas lights on the tree. He was two and mesmerized by the lights.Of course he wanted to touch them! I told him that he could not mess with the lights or the tree because fairies live in them. When the lights are on, the fairies are busy making for the tree. If they were disturbed, they would be afraid and would go away. Then not only would we have scared the fairies off, but there would be no tinsel on our tree! Naturally, the fairies put the tinsel on the tree on Christmas Eve as their way of welcoming the following day.

Now there is one important thing to remember. I almost blew the whole thing the first year. I was at work on Christmas Eve and I realized I had made a horrible mistake. I had NO tinsel! I had forgotten to buy it, namely because my son was usually with me when I went shopping. I don't even want to go into how I burnt up the phone line after work, at about ten o'clock on Christmas Eve trying to find a store that was still open!

At any rate, my son loved the idea of fairies living in our tree and never ventured near the lights again! We also lay under the tree and look up through the branches. While we do this, we discuss what kind of fun the fairies must have playing in the branches of the tree when they are on break and we are asleep!

Feel free to use my idea, but feel even freer to create your own based on what you and your children enjoy. I can tell you that I get a little giggle every year when I put the tinsel on our tree!

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