Happy Holidays from our tiny house!

Winter break offers us a nice change of pace when school is out.  The kids and I took a plane to Michigan for a little over a week to visit my extended family.  Husband stayed in AZ to work and cat sit.  It was a great visit.  It was also fun to stay with my siblings & see my nieces and nephews.  It was the first time we have stayed in a house for quite some time.  I am not sure Sister remembers living in a house, but she was very complimentary towards the homes we visited.  My siblings have basements which serve as a play rooms/game rooms for the kids.  My kids joined the fun and I remained with the adults upstairs for much of the time.  When the kids would come upstairs and get rowdy we (adults) would tell them to go back into the basement.  It was nice that the kids had a designated spot to play and to be loud.  Certainly a downside of our tiny living is that there is no indoor space for rowdy kids.  Thankfully the weather is good this time of year and we can send them outside!  We visited various homes and they were all decked out with Christmas lights and trees.  Ours is too, just on a much smaller scale!

I think Christmas in a tiny space is actually much more manageable.  We can't buy too much because we won't have a place to put it.  We can get the kids a few new enjoyable things that will travel well.  We put up two strings of lights along the trim of the slides and our tree will ultimately be under the presents, but it is cute. 

There were a number of years Husband and I celebrated a Buy-Nothing Christmas inspired by Buy-Nothing Day.  I would embrace a return to that practice in future years. 

Spending time in the homes of my siblings I note the various ways we have all sought to reproduce our own childhood experiences for our kids.  I asked my mom to make cut-out cookies so that the grandkids could enjoy the experience of decorating them.  This is something my nieces and nephews had done, but my kids had not.  Clearly good memories from our pasts inspire us to make good memories for our kids, but I was reminded that we can't ignore the possibility that there may be even better and more meaningful ways to make happy memories with the next generation.  Traditions are important when they remind us about our core values and our ancestors - traditions can also be suffocating when they stifle new ideas. 

I know that my choices about how to celebrate Christmas have long been considered odd by my family.  I am searching for the right balance of respecting the past and building the future.  I can't allow myself or my kids' worth to be defined by our ability to purchase and consume.  I want to pass on a sustainable way of life and that means living differently than what is normal.  Our family lives with one foot in and one foot out of traditional American consumerism.  One day I imagine shifting our weight more to the foot on the outside.  In the meantime we are exploring.  We continue to learn how to be comfortable with less than is expected by choice (not necessity).  We continue to learn how to want what we have instead of experiencing an insatiable desire for more. 

May this Holiday Season be filled with love and satisfaction!