Traditions

When does your family open Christmas presents?

There are so many traditions surrounding Christmas. Which ones do you keep when you get married? I doubt it's possible for you and your spouse to have completely compatible traditions.

Recently Ryan and I read "Twelve Traps in Today's Marriage and how to avoid them" by Brent A Barlow. We weren't expecting much from this book; but it turns out it was actually really helpful. Dr. Barlow chose twelve common traps in marriage and what to do about them. One was "tradition". He specifically mentioned the problem he and his wife had with deciding when to open Christmas presents - Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The tradition trap is when we insist that our marriage be exactly as our parents, friends, or relatives have it---or insisting that our marriage be as marriages of the past.

Solution: Examine your traditions. Decide which ones you want to keep, which ones you will discard, and which new ones you're going to make together. At least that's what works for us. We've done a lot of that over the years. There are plenty of traditions that we each had growing up, including some that we cherished, but that just don't work for our own family. Those traditions have to be let go of in a tender way.