Life Lessons From Memaw
"Dude, he's from Indiana. They only celebrate Love Your Cousin Day."
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Parenting adult children is hard. Not hard like when they were kids. Hard like I'm trying to find my place in their adult lives. I still feel like their mom but they are not my "children". They are adult family members that I love and have a special relationship with. I just can't think of them as children, because that really messes me up. But I do still think of them as my daughters:)
Establishing my relationship with my adult children is for another blog. My dilemma this week may seem very superficial and weird, but then again, that is my life. How do you handle holidays with your spawn who have their own lives?
I don't mean like who goes to whose house for the holidays or how much to spend on gifts. I am talking about the celebration part. How do you celebrate the holidays?
I had this issue when the girls were in college and my friend told me what they did in her family. We were talking about Christmas and I was complaining that we always celebrated it on Christmas Eve---but with making cookies for Santa and leaving our reindeer food for Rudolph and the gang. As adults, we don't do these celebrations anymore. My friend's girls were the same age as mine and she said that they changed up their Christmas Eve celebration. What they did now was go out for a really nice, expensive dinner and then to the theater. We live in Chicago, so there are usually ample opportunities to find a play to attend on Christmas Eve. I thought this was a magnificent idea and we started that tradition. It's been about 10 years now and it is still what we do. Sometimes we skip the play, go for a real long, expensive dinner downtown Chicago, and come home to finish the night with a Christmas movie. Problem solved!
Well, now we have Valentine's Day tomorrow. When my girls were young, we would do the chocolate hearts, toys, etc. to celebrate the day. Even in college, we would do care packages with candy, chocolate, and a stuffed animal. Now that one is married and both are on their own, they really aren't candy eaters. Cards are expensive and a waste of money. We wanted to do something fun, but inexpensive. Last year, my daughters actually inadvertently solved the problem for us. They bought and shipped Valentine's toys and treats to our dogs! It was perfect. I'm not one to buy the dogs gifts, so it was a day we could celebrate them.
So this Valentine's Day, I remembered what they did last year and thought it was brilliant. With Amazon so easy, I was able to buy toys and treats for their cats and have them delivered to each of their houses. Valentine's Day is now a celebration for how much we love our pets.
I'm sure once we have grandchildren, all of this will go through another transition. After all, it is all about the grandkids:)
Now, what to do about Easter? We have done Easter baskets in the past, but we need to "adult-up" that celebration. Maybe buy them a spring item for their house/apartment? Maybe Easter is the right time to buy them flowers?
Hmmm....if you have any ideas, let me know!
Blog Website: https://www.lifelessonsfrommemaw.com/
