One of the challenges of the whole blended family thing is dealing with holidays. Holidays often mean traditions. Traditions often tie you back to your roots.

When divorce happens, everything and everyone gets up-rooted.

Our first Christmas was a bit complicated, as we really were two families, trying to figure out how to come together. We wanted to respect everyone’s traditions, but without having the “we used to do it this way” or “I want to do it the way we used to”. It can get kinda annoying.

Luckily all the kids were relatively young, so we didn’t have to deal with too much of that. But, we also consciously decided we needed to develop our own traditions. We made modifications to ones that we (ok – really, I should say I) could not part with (e.g. Christmas Eve, Christmas ornaments, advent calendar, baking) and started some new ones (e.g. Quiet Elfie, Secret Santa, and getting the tree routine).

As time goes by, all the “old ways” are becoming a distant shadow in the past; in part, due to all our new traditions – that have really become “OUR” traditions.

We decided we needed a few more traditions to add to our CDF repertoire.

One new one is our “New pajamas, hot chocolate, drive around and admire lights”. It’s actually an idea that I heard about from one of my clients, and thought it was really cute and my family might really enjoy it.

So, we bought everyone new pajamas and presented them to them during family night.

Don’t they all look cute?

Ok. This is what Josh really was feeling about taking a picture.

Then, we made some delicious hot chocolate, and hopped in the car (in our new jammies) and checked out the lights around the different neighborhoods. We also delivered some cookie plates to a few people along the way.

My flash wasn’t working but you get the gist:

We looked for the nicest looking Christmasy house (ours obviously:)) and the tackiest. Our neighbor across the street came in second for tackiness. We actually found one worse: the neighbor of my girlfriend Larissa. Check this place out:

It was fun. The kids seemed to enjoy it and were excited about adding another tradition to help us get in the Christmasy spirit.

And it was nice that everyone was all ready for bed when we got back!