In our family, The Kid is famous. Who’s The Kid? He’s part of our Christmas tradition. We decorate our Christmas tree every year with a variety of ornaments. Our tree does not have a pulled-together theme, or a coordinated color. Our tree contains a diverse assortment of ornaments, including some from our childhoods, handmade ornaments, gifts from others, and decorations our kids made along the way. Our kids’ homemade ornaments are sometimes hung in the back of the tree, depending on the quality of the finished product. We have many more ornaments than will fit on a standard 7-8 foot Christmas tree, so we often pick and choose which ornaments to hang, and which ones to leave in the box.
Someone once gave us an ornament that was a small silver picture frame. The frame contained a stock photo, which you would replace with a family picture. Only, we never did. In the frame was a picture of a smiling boy, The Kid. One of my kids would hang The Kid on the tree every year. I would protest, and say that, of all ornaments, that one should be left in the box, but laughter ensued, and The Kid was hung on the tree. Oh, good grief. Then one year, I don’t actually recall doing it, but, as best as I can figure, I must have had a momentary surge of de-cluttering, and I threw the ornament away. I was probably thinking that we would never put a real picture in the frame, anyway, so the ornament wasn’t necessary. At the time, I hadn’t picked up on the fact that we had actually named the ornament The Kid; I thought it was a boring ornament, and we had many, much more interesting ornaments to use. And, even though my kids hung the ornament on the tree every year, I somehow thought that they were just trying to be obnoxious. I didn’t understand it to be a tradition.
When the next Christmas rolled around and it was time to decorate, the family soon discovered that The Kid was nowhere to be found. I brushed it off, well, these things happen. My kids continued to talk about the missing ornament for the whole month of December. Addie and Meredith secretly hatched a plan to sneak downstairs on Christmas Eve and flood the room with pictures of a random boy which they had printed from the computer. They called their scheme Revenge of The Kid. On Christmas morning, when they turned on the ceiling fan, gobs of headshots of a smiling boy rained down on everyone. We were simply perplexed; what, exactly, is happening? It took a few years, but one of us finally bought a replacement ornament, another hanging frame with a smiling boy. So, now The Kid II is hung on the tree every Christmas, much to everyone’s delight. It took me a long time to understand, but finally, I get it. The Kid is an inside joke, a funny memory about a ridiculous thing that my kids rehash from year to year.
The Kid illustrates our family approach to so many things. I recently wrote an article about some of my great ideas which quickly take on momentum as I use all resources to make things happen; you’d better get on board or get out of the way. That’s one dynamic in our family. Another dynamic is that we often never get around to actually doing things the way they were supposed to be done, or using things the way they were intended to be used. Sometimes, we settle for an unfinished product that we don’t use, but we keep anyway. We have a lot of unnecessary stuff that no one bothers to get rid of. How many boxes are full of how many things we neither need nor want? Why do we have so much stuff? Why do we keep all this stuff around? The Kid was a reminder, that, Here we go again!, year after year with something completely unnecessary that we never even tried to use correctly. Just one more example of us dropping the ball.
Was that the sentiment behind The Kid? Was that what my kids thought? No, I’m sure it wasn’t. I think they were just being funny. But, I think they latched onto the idea that, the importance we place on things is what makes them important. If they decided that The Kid was a treasured family tradition, then it was, even if it made me scratch my head and wonder why.
Which is to say, you can’t make things be memorable for other people. I’ve had family members recall events that had meaningful effect on their lives, but I don’t remember the event in the same way at all. People see things from their own perspective, and what becomes a lasting memory for you, might be an unimportant occurrence for me. And, based on my experience with The Kid, I realize that I should not discount someone else’s feelings, just because I haven’t been affected the same way.
Once your kids grow up, it’s very interesting to ask them about things you did as a family when they were young. Time and time again, my kids report how much they enjoyed a particular thing, or how fondly they remember a certain time, and I think Really? You remember THAT? I think that it is important to weave traditions into the family fabric, to increase a sense of groundedness and camaraderie, and to solidify shared experiences within the group. I’m surprised to realize, though, that you don’t always know which traditions will take root and grow. I'm learning to accept that.
I owe it all to The Kid. Thanks, dude.