Goodbye 2011!

I have not done a single thing to celebrate New Years in probably a decade. My mom never really made holidays fun or special growing up, partially because she was either asleep or at work, partially because for her there was a lot of pain associated with holidays. Needless to say, New Years was never anything special to me, except for 2000, which was a big deal since it was a new millennium. Even my mom got excited about that one. I remember wondering the neighborhood with a friend late into the night that year, and getting yelled at for it... Anyway, I digress.

Rich never really did much for it, either, which is a little more unusual, since his family did more for holidays. So, here is a holiday that neither Rich nor I have ever cared about. No surprise that we've never done anything for it. This year, though, rather last minute we decided we should do something for the kids. So we pretended that 8:00pm was 12:00am, did a count down, and let the kids have a cup of sparkling grape juice.

Nae hated the grape juice and quickly pushed it away. Elli and Tobiah had thirds. No surprise at all with any of that, or with the fact that Elli said it was "very hot". Silly girl. It's either "spicy" or "hot". She needs to learn some new adjectives for describing her food! Sitting and watching my kids watch the time tick down, then doing the ten second count down, and giggling and smiling while drinking their sparkling grape juice reminded me of how easy it is to build memories and start traditions that will stay with my children forever. I have to admit, I wasn't too enthusiastic about doing this with them, I really only did it so they could have a little fun and maybe start to learn a little about the passage of time with the changing of the year. I'm really glad we did it, though, because it was so evident on those little faces that it was exciting and special for them, and that is such a huge part of being a parent. Creating memories with your children that will last a lifetime.

So, this was a very pleasant end to 2011, and encourages me to stick to my resolution to create more memories as a family in 2012 than I have in 2011. Remember folks, the little things are what matter most to our precious children.