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For the first couple year’s of my marriage, we were close enough to my family that we were still able to participate in family traditions: holiday meals, church on Sundays, birthdays and so on. Since PCSing away (two moves ago) and adding our son to the family, we’ve had to be a bit more proactive about creating our own family traditions.
This came up in conversation a few nights ago when we started talking about Easter. My mom had all these funny little things that we did around Easter. My husband could really thought they were silly. And while they are silly things, when I look back those silly little things are an important part of my childhood. They are fun memories that make smile whenever I see the Easter decorations out.
With any marriage, you have a blending of family traditions and you create new ones. Being an Army spouse adds the extra dimension of being miles away from family. I want to find ways to incorporate our extended family into our holidays even when we aren’t able to travel.
How do you incorporate your extended families into your holiday traditions?
How about sending cards (like on Valentine's day – if you're someone who likes making the special day more than just between you as a couple)? On Easter, why not take a family picture of your family and send it to your extended family? For Christmas, you could share a countdown calendar with them. You make identical countdown calendars for both families. On the countdown calendar, you could include things that involve both of you, like a special phonecall or swapping special Christmas decorations, etc. As military wives, we've often heard of ideas to share holiday's with deployed servicemembers. Why not put some of them to use with extended family who are living a distance away?
My family is fairly spread out, and I've often thought about ways to stay in touch and continue to share my life with these special people.