One of the challenges of having teenagers and young adults in our home now is the constant fracturing and splintering of our family time. Sports and ballet, homework and after-school activities, church, scouts, jobs, and friends take up a great deal of time that used to be almost exclusively family time. It's hard to find time when all of us can be together as a family.
I used to think that Christmas vacation was one of those times. It really should be. The children are out of school. The professor husband is out of school. It is even one of the few times during the year that sports coaches (mostly) respect family time, and the calendar settles down to what should be day after day of doing only what one pleases to do. A few years ago, though, our local congregation decided to have an extra Christmas activity-- a live nativity, singing, and refreshments--to be held in our neighborhood just a few days before Christmas. It was a lovely idea, even though we had already had one Christmas party at the church a few weeks earlier. And then I discovered the little asterisk--the youth had been asked to handle all of the preparations, which actually meant that the
mothers of the youth would be handling the preparation. (Because apparently simply going to the ladies' auxiliary directly to spread out the work amongst
all of the women in the congregation was not possible. Sigh.) We had four children in the youth program, and each was expected to bring two dozen cookies. My scoutmaster husband was in charge of a massive amount of cocoa, and three of our teens were in the nativity itself. I spent an entire day prepping for the evening activity, and found myself too tired, cross, and mildly resentful to even go and enjoy the program. I sent my family out the door with eight dozen cookies, two giant jugs of cocoa, and three costumes layered underneath with thermals and vowed that the next year would be different.
The next year was different. We warned our children ahead of time that the two weeks of Christmas break were a stay-cation, therefore we would not be participating in any scheduled activities of any sort. This worked well, up to a point. That point was where our children decided that they should be playing with friends who were also home for the holidays during any period longer than an hour when we didn't have something specifically scheduled at home or out with the family. Saying "no" to friends on some days only resulted in pitched battles. I longed to be one of those families with relatives close enough or budgets big enough to go somewhere at Christmas time so that for just a couple of weeks a year it would just be... family.
So last year, facing the same dilemma, I decided to schedule two weeks worth of festivities, reasoning that if there was something scheduled every single day, our kids would spend time together--cheerfully, even. As part of those festivities, I decided to have a special dinner every single evening. We have ancestors from thirteen different countries (okay... close ancestors. If you go back further, it's even more, but it's hard to get as excited about your 15th great-grandfather from Russia as it is your grandfather from Syria). I planned out a feast for each of those countries celebrating with their unique traditions and hoped that it would keep my children around the table as well as giving them a taste of their heritage. I rounded up recipes from family, friends, and research. I planned menus, prepared as much as I could ahead of time, and then plowed forward.
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