Christmas Tradition

I am not a person who gets all crazy over Christmas. Mostly, I feel overwhelmed by the madness, chaos, and overcommercialization that many people have allowed Christmas to become. My family has tried to keep things simple in recent years and I do appreciate that. I do tend to like some Christmas traditions, like baking/eating certain types of cookies that only come around once a year. Some traditions, like my family's use of "the pink chair" for gift opening, are slightly odd. There remains one tradition, though, that does hold a special meaning for me.



My mom has this calendar, which she purchased from Avon at some point in the 80s. We kindly refer to it as "the mouse calendar" because there is a little mouse that you move from day to day as you count down to Christmas. You can see the mouse on today's date. Yes, the mouse has a bowtie, it's fantastic.

Every year since I can remember, my brother and I battled to be the first one down the stairs in the morning to "change the mouse"; only when both Joe and I were in college did my mom and dad ever actually participate in this activity.

Some mornings, Joe and I would race each other down the stairs, push each other if necessary, so we could have the chance to move the mouse. For the past twenty-some years, including last year, we kept this tradition alive in our parents' house. It's just too much fun so we keep doing it.

At some point last year there was some debate between Joe, my mom, and I about the mouse calendar; I honestly don't remember, but I'm assuming there was some discussion about who would get the mouse calendar in the future - one of us should have it I guess was the thought.

My savvy mom, who is learning the ways of technology, to my utter shock and surprise, was able to successfully get on eBay and bid on two of these calendars. My brother and I each received our very own mouse calendar on the day after Thanksgiving. I think Joe was embarrassed to be giddy about this small, yet appropriately thoughtful gesture by our mother, but I was absolutely ecstatic. Sure, there's no one to battle in the morning to be the one to move the mouse like there was in previous years, but each morning for the 24 days before Christmas, I get to wake up, move the mouse myself, and think about my brother and my family and how blessed I am. You see, that's what the mouse calendar represents for me - the safety and security of the familiar and the sense of family that I absolutely adore.