We’re a few days into our week long vacation in New Orleans. This is the first vacation we’ve ever taken for this long!

Happy New Year!

I’ve been telling people about our holiday traditions lately and I thought it would make a good post.

Some people decorate their Christmas trees with the same ornaments, like all red balls and silver ribbon. I scoff at those people (sorry). My mother’s tree, and now mine, are a culmination of 45 years of collecting. Every time we go on a trip we get an ornament. She still has the tacky Charlie Brown ornaments I painted with that awful sticky paint 25 years ago. The God’s Eye one of my brothers made. The plastic Santa and reindeer that topped one of my father’s cakes 30 years ago. And I love it all.

I love that each ornament takes me to the place we bought it. The kiosk in Holland. The RiverWalk in San Antonio. Tarpon Springs. And I look forward to the day that Max (or maybe his significant other) will want to take some of them for his own tree, just like I did when I went off to college.

What about you? How does your family celebrate the holidays? What are your traditions?

I never saw myself being one of those mothers who paid several hundred dollars for a party for her kid. Having it at home is good enough. But this year we decided to have Max’s 5th birthday at Mid America Museum in Hot Springs. It was about $160 for the room rental and getting 16 people in. Not that bad.

And everyone had soooo much fun. I mean everyone. Dads too.

And it was so much better than a party at Chuck E. Cheese or sweaty party at the park. It was even educational! And Max had a blast with his new friends.

Max would be the brown one. Ha!

Anyway, my baby is 5. I can’t believe it. This was the perfect party. It was pretty stress-free and easy. We all wandered around playing for 2 hours then did cake and ice cream. Then we got the hell out of there. No straggler guests at your house that you want to leave. No mess to clean up.

Wonder where we’ll have the party next year??

PS We discovered our friend Derek has the same hair as the newest member of our family, Aslan: