This blog is primarily a gift for my children. It is the legacy of their childhood. The best bits, the memories, successes and trials for them to look back on as adults. A gift of love and of the treasure of our family life. I don’t want to forget, but I also don’t want my children, especially the younger ones, to forget their childhood story and just how loved they were.
Something Gary and I did when we first married 16 years ago was to form our own traditions. Traditions are so important, I think, to the fabric of a family, even if that family only consists of two people deeply in love with each other. Traditions create a family identity which never dies. A simple smell or a piece of music has the power to transport you back to a moment in your history, in truth a mesh of many similar moments – the riches of a tradition oft repeated. In addition, traditions ground us, lending a soothing and comforting rhythm to our modern, frenetically paced life.
It is these traditions I intend to share here. Some we have been doing since our first year of marriage, others are newer. All are important to our family.
Our church holds a Charity Christmas Fair in late November each year. It is a chance for all the charities our church supports to come and sell their (often handmade) crafts. In addition the church is transformed into a cafe, with musicians, orchestras and singers playing in the background. We save all our pennies through out the year just for this occasion and buy many of our Christmas gifts here.
In actuality, our children begin their preparations for the fair weeks before its date. The older ones are part of the church’s youth choir and sing during the fair each year. This year A5 was old enough to join the very young children’s choir, so I had the pleasure of hearing her sing also. Here is a photo just before we left, in the choir shirts:
It is hard to take photos and avoid having other people in them so I have had to crop most of the ones I took which means they are not always the best of photos:
This event is so much bigger and ‘funner’ than my photos can show. We had a lovely time and came home with our arms laden with goodies!