My first ever blog post was about what I thought would be a great family tradition that ended up being a total pain in my ass! Well, here we go again…
Each Valentine’s Day I buy candy and cards for all three kids and my husband. He buys candy and a card for me. I usually have to shop around like crazy to find candy this is nut free for my daughter, and that seems relatively proportionate to what I got for the boys.
This year, I read in Family Fun Magazine about a family who draws names and then buys Valentines for each other that way. The family said it was so sweet and everyone loved being able to pick out a Valentine for their “Secret Valentine.” Sucker that I am, I immediately subscribed to the sweetness of this and suggested it to my family! Plus, I thought, then everyone would be responsible for a Valentine for someone else, and not just me doing it all. Or so I thought.
I wrote out the names and we all drew one, starting with the youngest. It went perfectly well. I told the kids that if they drew my name, they’d have to tell Daddy and he would take them shopping, and if they drew Daddy’s name to tell me and I’d take them shopping for their “Secret Valentine.”
You know where this is going, right? Right down the tubes, that’s where! This great idea, this new tradition, is nothing more than the usual tradition, but more of a pain for me!
Here’s the breakdown of the “secret” drawing:
Little Guy gets Big Guy
Big Guy gets Little Guy
The Daughter gets Daddy
I get the Daughter…
And Daddy gets me.
Got it? It means, I STILL DO ALL OF THE VALENTINE’s SHOPPING, ONLY I DO IT 3 SEPARATE TIMES!
Typical.
Happy freakin’ Valentine’s Day!
I’m part Irish and I always make a corned beef and cabbage dinner for St. Patrick’s Day. That’s it. Oh, and I usually wear green and so do the kids. Last year though, I heard about other moms who pretended a leprechaun had visited. They messed up the house (leprechauns are mischievous, you know), turned the kids’ milk green, offered green bagels for breakfast and put gold wrapped chocolate coins in the kids’ shoes. So, not to be out done, I just had to do the same. A classic case of keeping up with the Joneses, or should I say, the O’Joneses.
Fast forward one year and here I am totally regretting this new tradition. March 16th used to be a day like any other. Instead, it’s now the day I realize I’ve created this new “tradition”, and at the last minute have to race from the bagel shop (they were out of green bagels by the way, but they open at 6am, so guess who’s getting up early), to the market for the food coloring, and the local chocolatier for the coins.
I thought that maybe I’d just do the bagels, or just turn the milk green – then I thought again. This is a brand new tradition. Their memory of it is clear. It’s not like the other traditions that are many years old, that are all one big mashed up memory, in which they can’t tell year from year. I have to do it all. The alternative is to admit that there is no such thing as a leprechaun. And you all know what that leads to…
So this year I added a new tradition, a stop at the package store for some good old fashioned Bailey’s Irish Cream. If I have to keep up with the O’Joneses, I may as well make sure there’s something in it for me.
confessions of a minivan mom 