So, who remembers the Seinfeld episode where George's dad comes up with Festivus? Yup, "Festivus for the rest of us." So, maybe the Seinfeld holiday got a little carried away with The Pole (tinsel is too distracting) and the Airing of Grievances.....
But who says you can't create your own holiday? We did!
It began with having a son whose birthday is right before Christmas. Not only was he inundated with birthday presents, a few days later he was bombarded with Christmas presents. Then my daughter came along and her aunts got carried away with buying cute girlie stuff. It just got to be way too much.
I tried to get everyone to cut back on the gift-giving, and they did respect our wishes (for the most part - we're dealing with some serious shoppers). My husband and I found we still weren't comfortable with all the "stuff" the kids were accumulating.
Thus, Vaughan Day was born. We discussed our idea with the kids: they wouldn't get any Christmas gifts from us, but instead we'd have a holiday in the summer
where they'd get gifts. They were all for it. They called it Christmas in July.The first year that we were going to skip Christmas gifts, I was a little worried that we'd have two unhappy kids on our hands. I kept reminding them about our arrangement. When Christmas rolled around, they barely even noticed.
This past weekend, we celebrated our 2nd annual Vaughan Day. We brought the tree up from the basement and decorated with "summery" ornaments. The kids and I made our own decorations the day before. My favorites were my son's light saber ornament (nothing says family holiday like a Star Wars) and my daughter's lemonade ornament (notice the long spoon for stirring?). Instead of garland, I used pink crepe paper around the tree. I'm all about multi-purposing stuff that's laying around.
On Sunday morning, we had Big Breakfast, as it's called in our house - bacon, eggs, cinnamon rolls, the works! Then the kids opened their presents. They each got one present and were thrilled.They even made us cards with a piece of candy from their prized stash of candy. We spent the whole day together - no pressure, no stress. We went to the
movies and then ordered our favorite pizza. It couldn't have been a better day!So, I highly recommend coming up with your own holiday. Be creative!
Do you like bagels? Try one day where all your meals include bagels (bagel dog anyone?) and it's your own official Bagel Day!
Love books? Why not Reading Day, when you spend the whole day in pajamas and curl up with a good book and a nice mug of tea.... and scones. (Hey, I think I may do this one!)
Celebrate your family, your friends - and yourself! And do it any way that makes you happy!
