I had really wanted to link-up with WIWS...but totally forgot to take a picture. And I"m guessing no one wants to see me in my bright green Mount St Mary's sweatshirt...oh well. Maybe next week.
Moving on...
We all have our own ways of celebrating this season. A lot of how I grew up celebrating came from my mother's Colombian heritage (have I mentioned I'm half Colombia? And proud of it baybay)
One of the traditions my mother has passed on to my sister and I is a Colombian Christmas Novena, called Novena de Aguinaldos. In Colombia, family and friends gather together every night of the novena, usually in a different home each night, to pray and sing this novena together. I grew up praying the novena with my mom and sister in Spanish - which meant that I could understand it on a very surface level. A couple years ago, my sister (whose Spanish is much better than my own) took on the endeavor of translating the novena so my brother-in-law, father, and now Chris could pray with us and understand it. If anyone would like to join in on this Colombian Christmas Novena, I am hoping to post the prayers every day of the novena - which starts tomorrow, December 16th. I'd love to pray with you!
Another Colombian Christmas tradition I grew up with was the baby Jesus giving us gifts. We would go to midnight mass (to this day it doesn't feel like Christmas without midnight mass) and when we came home, we would have presents under our pillows from the Child Jesus. The next morning presents would be under the tree from Santa. I always loved this, I have never heard of another family doing this, and to me, it helped us stay focused on the Christ child.
This year will be the first year I spend away from my family for Christmas. When we got married, Chris and I decided to switch off years with our families. I'm struggling with this. I love my in-laws and love spending time with them, don't get me wrong, but I'm having a hard time acknowledging that most (read: all) of my Christmas traditions will not be happening. No midnight mass. No presents from baby Jesus under my pillow. But then I feel selfish, because Chris' family has their own traditions that I'll get to learn, and Chris and I will be able to incorporate each families traditions into our own one day.
I love the idea of presents under the pillow as a way to keep the focus on Jesus! Andrew and I go back and forth about doing Santa with our kids (I'm still a believer, haha, while he grew up without Santa Claus), and I really like the way your family combines the two! I know how tough it is having to give and take for holidays. I hope that regardless, you enjoy the season with your hubby and have a peaceful time =)
ReplyDeleteI can definitely understand how you're feeling about not getting to spend the holidays with your family, and I think once you read my latest post you'll see that you're handling it much better than me! I'm sure we'll both have wonderful new holidays!
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