Holidays and Kids -- Who Knew?

In the wake of the Bunny, colored eggs, and all that Easter brings to our home, I’ve been thinking about the way that holidays have changed since the birth of our daughter. Holidays – Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, Halloween – they aren’t new around here. Like normal people, we’ve been celebrating them for our entire lives. But, since Meg, many of our celebrations have become new again.

It’s like . . . in your late teens and 20s, some of the holidays lose their flare. You know about Santa, the Easter Bunny just stopped visiting me, personally, and days like Halloween and St Patty’s are just excuses to get together with your friends and party (AKA drink heavily).

Then you get married, and the holidays still aren’t what they once were in your life. You start having to decide with which family you are going to celebrate, who’s going to get up and answer the door to give out candy, etc. Your past the drinking, but not really celebrating to the fullest.

Then you have a baby. And – I’ll admit – the first year you still aren’t QUITE back to the holiday splendor you used to endure. You WANT to be . . . man, I wanted to take 9-month-old-Meg to an Easter egg hunt last year! . . . but your family just isn’t ready for all that those special calendar days have to offer. You dress your baby in appropriate colors, accept the compliments on how cute she is in public, and wait for the real celebrations to kick in.

Since Meg hit the one year mark last summer, the glorious days of HOLIDAYS are here again.

Her birthday celebration was a start . . . the grand shindig that stressed me out and drove me crazy for the entire 6 weeks I took to plan it. That was a fun day. She was generally giddy and had a great time opening gifts and eating cake. I was generally giddy and shared in her fun.

Then there was Halloween. You may remember from the blog posts that Halloween lasted for about a week around here . . . school parties, playdates, birthday parties, and the actual act of trick-or-treating itself. It was amazing, and it left me wanting more and more for our Halloweens to come.

The other end-of-the-year holidays were no slouch, either. Meg watched the Macy’s Parade with genuine interest last year. She attended special Christmas themed music classes, and we had a great time at yet another preschool party. We saw Santa, baked cookies, wrapped and unwrapped countless gifts . . . tis the season when I was so jolly. I loved it. I loved sharing that excitement with my little one. And I liked being on the ‘grown up’ side of it for the first time in my life. We stayed up late on Christmas Eve, putting together toys and winding up for the fun morning that followed.

Valentine’s Day even gets reinvented when you have a kid! Now – that holiday – for me, it’s lost is luster since Jim and I spent our first one together in February of 2002. Since then, we’ve been devoted to each other 365 days a year (or 366, as in this year), so I don’t really care to celebrate Valentine’s. Call me a grump, but I don’t need anything to remind me that Jim is in love with me (okay, well, I’ll take a flower or two, if necessary). But with Meg, there were two parties in one day that we had to attend! And there were Valentine’s to make . . . which I hadn’t done in years.

Now Easter has come and gone, and we enjoyed it to the fullest. Egg hunting was phenomenal, as was the egg dying and Easter Basket filling. It was an event to look forward to, and a day to remember.

Holidays and kids – who knew? Chalk it up to yet another fantastic thing that nobody really tells you is going to happen when you become a parent.

Next around here . . . Mother’s Day! Now that’s one I really didn’t celebrate until I had a kid :)