Christmas Traditions At Our House: The Lights

Another Christmas tradition at our house is putting up Christmas lights, both outside and inside.

I haven't shown you our back door all decked out for Christmas yet, have I? 

This is the door that guests enter when they come to our house, so it gets the most attention with the decorating. I like the look of classic white lights. I think decorating the outside of your house at Christmas sets a festive Christmas mood before people even enter your house. It's very warm and welcoming.

I use lights inside too. For years I've hung lighted garland around the French doors in our living room. What is it about lights at Christmas? The soft glow is just kind of relaxing, I guess.

I didn't realize the lights inside were such a tradition until last year. I happen to be one of those people who are so excited to put up the lights each year that I usually don't think to check and see if the lights are working before I put them up. That's what happened last year. (And this year too. But we don't really need to talk about how 3/4 of my outdoor lights had to be redone because they didn't work. Oy!) Anywho.....last year, the garlands for around the doors didn't work. And I had kind of procrastinated in putting them up anyways so there was really no time to go out and get new ones.

My son was watching me go through all this and when I told them I just wasn't going to put them up for that year he said, "You HAVE to Mom! It's tradition!"

I had no idea it meant so much to him. So I scrounged around in all my decorations and found one good strand of garland with lights and was able to put it across the mantel (which, by the way, I didn't like nearly as much.) And I promised my son that I would make sure we had new lights for around the doors for this year.

I learned a lesson. What my kids see as a tradition may be different than what I consider to be one. If you're struggling with trying to do so much during this season, maybe it would be a good idea to sit your family down and ask each person what tradition is most important to them and do your best to accomplish that. You can spend your energy doing the things that are most important to your family and not stress out about everything else that you just thought was important.

And hopefully next year I will finally learn my lesson about testing the lights before I put them up. But I wouldn't count on it!