Sunday 15 December 2013

Secret santa! Guest post from Dear Daughter

Hello,

We are taking part in The Adoption Social's Secret Santa and this blog post is my gift from Dear Daughter, our adoption journey http://www.dear-daughter-our-adoption.blogspot.co.uk/

Enjoy! 

I like my traditions and Christmas is a big time for traditions.  Traditions shaped my childhood Christmas memories – advent calendar, making the Christmas cake, turkey, opening pressies in our PJs, small presents for the Christmas dinner table, seeing the crib in the local church, carol service, making mince pies and Christmas Log, watching Christmas Top of the Pops … and many more.   Of course, tradition can also be read as ‘routine’ and we know how much our adopted children love routine. 
I always have a warm feeling inside when I think of Christmas as a child and I’d love my daughter to have that same warm feeling when she grows up.  This is the second Christmas we’re celebrating together as a family, her second with an advent calendar and she loves opening it this year – last year I was definitely the most excited probably because she’d never had one before.  We’re making mince pies next week and we’ve started what hopefully will be a new tradition of each making one new decoration for the tree.  We’re collecting the tree this Sunday after the local family Christingle service (her first one) and will celebrate later in the day with a roast pork tenderloin.   Christmas Eve curry, in recent years, has become a new tradition for me and Daddy anyway and since our daughter has recently developed a liking for them, I foresee a new family tradition being set down.   
As time goes on, I hope we’ll develop new family traditions but also incorporate some more of our longstanding traditions too to help make Christmas fun and memorable.