Christmas Tradition part 2: The Christmas Calendar

Okay, I know right from the start that this will be a surprise to some of you.  Not what I write next, but rather that I consider it a Christmas tradition.  So, a little explanation first might be helpful...maybe. 

Over the years we have had a certain spouse who is very structured and planned.  This particular spouse has married a spontaneous fly by the seat of your pants spouse making an interesting marriage at times.  Sometimes boring but mostly interesting.  As the years have passed, compromises made, learning gained, trust accumulated a certain "tradition" has developed.  I will call it the tradition of "the Christmas calendar". 

Nowadays this turns out to be a very important part of celebrating Christmas in our family.  With folks flying in for the holidays and lots of preparation needed for various activities and many activities crammed into a short time frame it has become important that a planning session be held--a family counsel if you will--to decide what activities will occur at all, when they will occur and who will be responsible for what.  For example it is understood after many years that Lisa will be the administrator for the goodies that are made for the holidays.  I will be the administrator for picking up and returning folks to the airport.  Those duties aren't delineated much anymore because it is understood.   

So yesterday was the big day that we had the family counsel/planning session.  Most of our activities occur after students from the university fly into town and so we had several days with a lot going on.  Various family traditions are planned, dated, ideas of who will be invited and so forth, any adjustments to past traditions discussed, decided on and what needs to be done in the next couple days to keep things on track--all done.  That might sound a little bit dry to some but in reality it was tremendously fun because interspersed through all this was a variety of high hilarity.  A couple of pouting sessions by one child that turned into laughing sessions thanks to another and various takes on "I thought you said..." as our hearing apparently continues to deteriorate.  I find frankly that what I hear is usually much funnier than what was actually said, which for us leads to good times...usually. 

So now everything is calendared and we have our initial marching orders and will move forward working together knowing what we are doing or at least trying to do.  This saves us a lot of hassle later on when time is of the essence and it is important that we are all on the same page.  That is unless we have one of the "I thought what we decided was..." Ha! 

Now, a happier family, because we are planned and we know when we can be spontaneous and when we can't because we are already scheduled and don't have time!