This is my first ‘out-on-my-own’ holiday season. It’s also my first married holiday season. I didn’t think anything of it until about a week before Thanksgiving, when I remembered holiday traditions existed. And then realized that we (S and I) didn’t have any.

I may have mentioned before that S isn’t really a ‘holidays person’. So when I first introduced the concept of deciding what our traditions will be, he laughed at me. After some teasing (“Babe, how about some traditional tequila shots?”), I found out that he doesn’t have any traditions that he holds dear, and I just needed to pick things that he found agreeable.

So. 
Married Thanksgiving: Round 1

The only thing I decided for Thanksgiving day was to drink my fancy hot chocolate. When we got up that day, S made gluten-free pancakes for breakfast. I love breakfast foods, so I decided that should be a tradition too. But I’ll let you know how that goes in 2014’s Married Thanksgiving: Round 2.

My family always decorated the house for Christmas on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and put everything away the first weekend of the new year. So on Saturday, before we drove up the mountain, I partook in some of my childhood traditions:

(I decorated this frame all by myself when I was 5. That’s me with Santa when I was in kindergarten)

(This is technically an ornament. But for now it’s just a laminated star with my first grade school picture in it)

(Christmas socks. Because Christmas. Duh.)

(I had to make cookies. Had to.)

(My personal favorite – tree decorating. Love. It. Since we’re poor and live in a small apartment, we didn’t buy a tree this year. I won this little guy in a raffle when I was in elementary school, and have decorated him every year since! It’s definitely apartment-sized. He’s about a foot tall…)