My Single Mom Life

This is my first time doing it but it's #10.
Sometimes I run out of blog ideas so memes of this type can be fun to help me write things.

This week's topic: "Traditions".

Since it's holiday time, I am going to limit this post to holiday traditions....more specifically, Christmas traditions. (stolen from Kim).

As a kid, holidays were magical, we always watched all the specials on tv, Rudolph, Santa Claus is coming to town etc.
The tree would be real except for those few times we had a fake one but you'd never know it was fake because mom always decorated it so well.
Mom would bake dozens and dozens of cookies and make home made frosting for them and we'd all help decorate them.
I'll tell you the story of the last batch of cookies in a minute.

The house was always done up, and the tree was always in the front window. Music would always be playing and mom would be in the kitchen baking and singing right along.
I remember the giant Sears wish book and I'd carefully go over it for weeks picking out exactly what I wanted.
I think I knew Santa wasn't real from a very early age. I remember a few times hearing my folks talk about how they could afford presents for all us kids. (They had Mike, Joey, me, Frankie and a few foster kids all the time plus nieces, nephews, cousins.)
But even knowing he wasn't real didn't take away any enjoyment at all, it as still magical.
I still watched all the shows and decorated cookies and helped mom as much as she'd let me in the kitchen.

With my own kids, I didn't do things as they did. I never told them Santa was real. I have always told he wasn't. I get a lot of crap for that. I've been told that I'm ruining Christmas for them by taking that part away. I've asked them about that and they have said no, that it was never ruined. They appreciated what they got more because they knew the gifts were from me.
I've never baked dozens of cookies with them, I have never baked pies for days on end. I buy cookie dough and frozen pies. I buy my meals pre-packaged from Publix.

We do have our own traditions though. We always decorate together,hang up our stockings, watch all the classic kids specials. Most of which I own on tape because I loved them so much as a kid, I wanted to be able to watch them with my own kids when ever and not have to wait for a time and date to watch them. We can watch them without commercials when ever we want. Sebastian has even watched them in the middle of July...lol

We pick out what we want from Amazon together, adding things to our wish list and going back and forth on what we want like a bunch of little kids.
We decide what we want for our dinner, what kind of pie or cake for desert, they help cook it all that day. We watch the parades that are on while it cooks, we have the same snacks while watching the parades. We have crackers and a cheese ball, home made punch made with ginger ale and sherbet, bacon and eggs for breakfast. They help me clean up all the mornings dishes, and set the table or get our school trays out and ready.
Since getting those two years ago, we have used them for every holiday except this past Thanksgiving.
We love those.
We open our presents together and give the cats their cans of cat food from their stockings. The cats only get cans once a year and Christmas is that time. They love it and seem to know, they paw at their kitty stockings that morning when they see us opening gifts.
The boys then open their stockings and dig out all their candy and small presents.
Then I try to explain over and over that no, the mall or Best Buy or what ever store they got gift cards for, is not open Christmas day and no, I will not be going to any of them the day after either because they will be jam packed with people returning gifts they hated and getting day after xmas deals.

We spend the afternoon watching movies or playing with new toys.
All in all, our traditions while not like the ones when I was growing up, have suited me and the boys well. We do what we like doing and aren't set to a standard or rules.

Now, the last cookie story.
I don't recall where my parents had to go that day, but they left me, my brother Mike, and sister Joey, in charge of decorating the cookies.
This was when we were much older, I know I was at least 17 and had been out partying the night before.
They left and my brother decided he was going out some where. My sister left too. I was left alone with like 12 dozen cookies to do alone and I was quite hungover from the night before.
I was pissed off I got deserted and thought it was totally unfair I had to do them alone.
I did the first few dozen ok, did them really nice but after several hours carefully spreading frosting on and making the trees look like real tress and the Santas look like Santas, I gave up and just started splatting frosting all over them and threw sprinkles at them.
I bagged them up with still wet frosting and left the house myself to go party with friends some more.
When my parents got home, I took all the shit that came from ruining the cookies.
Yes, I ruined them, I admitted to that. But I was not left alone to do them, they were supposed to stay and help. They bailed on me before even doing 1 stinking cookie.
My mom was upset, my dad was pissed. But not at them, just me.
They didn't get yelled at, just me.
I hated them for that. The left and went out to have fun and got in no trouble at all for the cookie fiasco.
I still harbor a bit of resentment over this as you can see. It still bothers me to this day that the two of them never got in one bit of trouble for it but I got yelled at for the whole night and most of the next day and when ever anyone asked why the cookies looked so bad, they were told it was all my fault. I suffered dirty looks from relatives that whole Christmas and have been reminded of it for many years after.
I really think this is a big part of why I never made home made cookies with my kids. I didn't want to deal with it, go through the hassle and make any one kid feel like it was their job to do them perfectly.
I know my folks didn't mean to make me feel bad about it, it just happened.
I wish I could get over that, but I remember it every year in vivid detail and it always makes me feel bad.