New Traditions

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Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And we are right around Christmas. So we're so excited. And so we have some more tidbits about how to start new traditions in your family, how to know which older traditions to hold onto, and then how to really take transitions and new seasons in stride. And so we're gonna talk all about that. Right, sweetie?

It's such a fun conversation. And stick around to the very end. Cause right at the end, we talk about one of our faves, newer family traditions that our kids in particular have really enjoyed. And I hope this conversation is meaningful to you and helps make this Christmas season your best one yet. So let's dive in.

Well, welcome back, guys. We're going to talk more about things that have to do with the holidays and marriage. And today we're going to talk about new traditions. And basically, it really kind of started with us talking about how, you know, things don't always look the different or things don't always look the same. I can't even talk this today. Things don't always look the same as we go through our marriage, especially when it comes to traditions and the holidays, because our kids are getting older, we're changing. You may have moves, you may have just some different family transitions that make things a little bit, you know, different. And we have to adjust and form some new traditions.

We do. And so in this episode, we're going to talk some about that, like, what are the things that you really hold on to? And then what are the traditions you hold more loosely? And then when is it time to make some new traditions? This is especially, I think, timely when you got kids that start getting married, and all of a sudden, you can't just count on them being there the exact time they always were, because now there's another family to consider. And you're welcoming new people into your family through marriage and through new grandchildren and all of that. So that's part of it. Also, just as your own children get older, as ours are right now, as we're recording this. We have two high schoolers and two elementary schoolers. And so. And with one of those high schoolers, he's a senior. This is his last year. And we're thinking, well, man, is this, Is this the last year that Christmas is going to look a certain way? Because he's under our roof and hopefully he'll be coming home from college on Christmas breaks in the future. But I don't know, we're thinking through things in a new way with this being the last year that he's going to be with us all the time.

Right.

And so how's it going to look differently? What are those things that we want to hold on to? The traditions we want our kids to look forward to even as they become adults, but also the things we hold loosely to that we can't always control how it's going to look, and that's okay. And in every new season, there are new opportunities to do new things. And so we, we're just. We're excited about the adventure ahead. And so, sweetie, let's talk some about kind of what, what the traditions look like right now for us and how we got to this point and what we think it might look like in the future.

Yes. When it comes to Christmas traditions in particular, we really, we have, like, this one tradition. We've shared a little bit on here before in past episodes, but kind of the short of it is we don't do Elf on the Shelf because I just. I didn't want the pressure, even though I love creative stuff like that and I love fun stuff. But we kind of came to it late in the game. So I thought, you know, I'm going to kind of adapt a tradition that my mom did for us as kids to make it in with the narrative of Elf on the Shelf, since that does exist for some families. And basically, you know, for our little ones, we. And we still do this for the bigs, too, but it looks a little different. We have this little magical sleigh that we put out every Christmas. And 12 days before Christmas, our invisible elf. Okay.

Who none of them believe in, who.

None of them believe in and never have.

Say, like, oh, yeah, the invisible elf.

Our elf on the shelf.

And really, they just wake us up. Mom, give me the invisible elf present.

Well. Cause sometimes I forget to put it in the sleigh. But it's supposed to magically, while we're sleeping, put a little gift in that magical sleigh. My mom did this when we were little. We didn't call the invisible elf but, like, she would just say, oh, my goodness, there's a magical sleigh where there's these little bitty presents, like a little ornament or socks or, like, you know, pair of earrings. Candy. Right. And so we do this with our boys, and every year, it's a little more challenging, especially with the older boys. Cause, you know, it could be we used to get them just like a set of Pokemon cards or, you know, a little ball or something, you know, for younger kids. But now that they're older, it looks a little different. So, like, this past year, Cooper was kind of a newer driver, and I got him. I was just racking my brain over, like, how can I get him something unique? And we love the Office, as we have established here on the podcast. And so I found through either Etsy or Amazon. I can't remember, but it was. Okay. I can't believe I'm saying this. On the air, it was Prison Mike from the Office. And if you are Office fans, I'm Prison Mike. I'm Prison Mike. Okay. But it was basically Michael Scott, who is Steve Carell, dressed up as Michael Scott, the leader of the Office. And him with this basically a do rag on his head. And it's ridiculous doing this character called.

Prison Mike to try to scare his employees from wanting to go to prison.

And anyway, it was an air freshener to hang on your little rearview mirror for your car. So I got that for Cooper, and it made his day.

He loved it. Yeah. It's trying to be thoughtful. I mean, thoughtfulness never goes out of style, but what your kid's into is always gonna be changing.

It is. And it makes it harder on parents. But it's kind of been fun because I'm like, well, what are they into this year? What would be something that would, you know, when they're older? It's like something a new hobby they enjoy. That's a small little gift I can put in there. Or, like, you know, I did several gifts that had to do with being a new driver. But it's really fun, and that's a tradition we will hold onto for as long as we can. The kids get a kick out of it, and I think it's just because they get gifts before Christmas, and they love that, you know, leading up to it, we don't really do an Advent calendar. Sometimes we do. I mean, every now and then, somebody will give us one, but it's kind of like that. Some people have Advent calendars where, you know, they have. There's little trinkets within the calendar they give their kids. And so this can look a lot of different ways.

It can, it can. And I'm so thankful for. There's something very special about keeping certain traditions.

Yes.

I mean, for us, every, every year, for as long as I can remember, we've taken the kids to a place in our area called Lights of the South.

We love life.

We usually meet up with some friends or our small group from church. And you know, you get on, they got all these lights and all these different Christmas displays. And then at one point you can get on the back of a tractor like a hayride and they ride you through this big light display or you.

Can walk it like we did this year. This past year. Yeah.

And the kids really look forward to this. Like, even the older boys, they do. They have outgrown a lot of like the little kid Christmas stuff. They still really look forward to this every year. And it doesn't feel like Christmas to them until we've gone to lights.

I'm offended if we haven't.

Let's go, guys.

Come on.

And so those traditions really do matter. And there's a certain comfort in them. I know. Like going back to mom and dad's house at Christmas time. And of course it looks way different now that, you know, they've got grandchildren, many grandchildren of their own. But there's still a lot that we still do. And mom and dad are so generous and great hosts. And mom will always playing these little games, like trivia games or.

She loves it.

These fun games with prizes involved.

But let me just say, and Karen, if you're listening, you know this is true. She'll make a game, but there really is no winner or loser. Everyone wins the same amount of money, right?

Cause she's.

No matter what. Because she just doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

There's sometimes. There's still a prize.

There's a prize, but then she'll even it out. So Chandler, our 10 year old who's just like super practical is like, this is not even fun because there's, you know, it's not really a competition, so. But we still have fun with it. She'll do like movie quotes that we guess. And of course you and your brother Ben win every year because you don't.

Movie quotes. Yeah, Ben especially, he's great. But it's just fun, you know, dad will dress up like Santa and. Which still scares the children.

It does. And let me just say, you listen to previous episodes. You know, we actually don't go home at Christmas what we're talking about. And this makes it probably a little more complicated. We actually do this around Thanksgiving time just so that we can be there. So this is, like, very early Christmas celebration.

Yeah, we do, like, a Thanksgiving Christmas hybrid with my family, which is. It's fun.

It is fun. I mean, the kids know it's coming. It's kind of. But your dad still dresses up, even though it scares them. And I will say, one year, he decided to do Spider man instead. Do you remember this?

Yeah.

And I don't think. I think it scared him, too.

He was the world's heaviest Spider Man.

Oh, I think it was scary.

Did Spider man have such a big belly?

They kept saying, well, no, but now if you've seen the new Spider man multiverse movie, they have different kinds of spider men, like, through their different generations. So you could say, like, he's just.

He's from the multiverse.

Older multiverse Spider man.

And he's. Yeah, so we'll go with that. So find those traditions, those little things that if you can do it with some consistency, it will bring comfort and joy to continue to do this, but also be willing to embrace some new things. You know, like, we're gonna try something new this year. And I would say every year there's at least something new that we do. And sometimes it catches on as its own tradition, and sometimes it's just a one and done.

Right.

But don't get so rigid and tied to. It has to look this exact certain way that you miss out on the freedom and the fun that can come from trying something new.

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Well, And Dave, just saying that leads me into a story that kind of taught us this. And it was years ago, we decided we would try to do a gingerbread house. And our kids were still pretty young at the time. I think even. I don't even know if Tatham was born when we first did this. Right, sweetie?

Yeah.

And so we got like the Walmart kit to make a gingerbread house and to decorate it and all that. And on the way home, like from Walmart after getting the kit, the older boys were kind of throwing it back and forth and fighting over who wanted to hold the box. And when we got home, it was completely broken into pieces. And at first, and I was so.

Down, I was like, this was gonna be a magical moment. And it was just gonna be like, just a scene from a Hallmark movie of us sitting around and making this beautiful gingerbread house. And you ruined it. You ruined Christmas. I mean, I was in a funk. And Ashley so wisely just said, sweetie, nothing is ruined. And I said, but the pieces are broken. It's never gonna look like the picture on the box.

Yeah.

And she said something so wise. She said, it doesn't have to look like the picture on the box, because it doesn't. That picture on the box is. That's not even real. You know, let's take these shards of broken gingerbread house and just make like, let's have a gingerbread cookie making party with all these different shapes of gingerbread. And we did. And it was one of the most fun nights we've had.

It was. And now, like, that's kind of what we do. We don't even expect to make an actual gingerbread house. We just kind of get the pieces and decorate them and eat them and it's really fun.

And we break them and break them up and decorate them. And it doesn't have to be a house, which takes the pressure off.

It does.

And so sometimes just take the pressure off yourself. And I think an illustration from that gingerbread house is, you know, we're all trying to make our Christmas or our life or holiday, our marriage look like this artificial picture on a box that we see in our head from what we've seen in movies or highlight reels on Instagram. And it doesn't have to look like that.

Right.

But if you'll take the broken pieces, the imperfect pieces of your own life and say, God, do something beautiful with this and help us with joy and Thanksgiving, work with what we have, then you could create your own tradition. That's going to be something so Much more beautiful than that. That fake picture on the box ever was.

Exactly.

And that's been a joy for us now. Like, breaking those pieces and thinking back to that first night that that tradition accidentally started has been one of the most fun things that we do.

I know. And I think, too, when we come into these moments where we're feeling a little bit like, well, it doesn't look like it's supposed to even just in your life, for whatever reason. I think a lot of times it's around grief, like, maybe there's a family member who's missing that year, or maybe there's been a transition, like somebody moved, like for college or for a new job, and so you can't get together like you once were able to at that time of year. I think a lot of times, you know, some of you listening are blended families. And I know for dear friends of ours, a lot of times, you know, they trade off which year each parent gets the child or children. And I know we have some dear friends that whenever it falls on their year to not have the kids at Christmas time, you know, they used to just be at home and be really sad and, like, just terribly, you know, just really toiling and being like, why does it have to be this way? But they said they were going to stop doing that. Instead, they decided to pick their favorite place to go. And it happened to be this place in Mississippi, I remember, that has their favorite restaurant. And they would ride motorcycles. You know, they'd bundle up and ride motorcycles out there. You know what I'm talking about, sweetie?

Yeah.

And they. Every year, if they did not have the children, you know, if they had the children, they'd do all the festivities at their house, like any Christmas. But they were like, we're just gonna take it in stride because this is. This is how it is in a blended family sometimes. And we're gonna go celebrate together. And I think they would go to a special church service there. And they actually befriended people in this part of the country because it became every two years, this is what they would do. So instead of dreading it, they were like, no, no, no. This is just our year to go to Mississippi. And I just thought. I thought that was so wise. And I think, you know, for even people who are not a blended family, like, maybe there's something that has changed. And being in the house, you doing what you used to do almost is more hurtful than helpful. Pick a new tradition. Go somewhere. Like, maybe you go and you take the kids to Great Wolf Lodge. Like, I know, some of you are like, that is gross. Don't go to Great Wolf Lodge. I love Great Wolf Lodge. Let me just say. But do what?

Well, tell people what that is. That might be in some part of the country.

That's true. Or maybe, maybe not even in the United States. But Great Wolf Lodge is this really cool place. It is a huge lodge, a huge hotel that has a big indoor water park. And they also do little nighttime festivities where it's great for small children. They have, like, a story time. They do a sunrise time where they tell stories as well. And there's characters with a little bit of animatronics. And then there's huge slides. There's small slides. There's big splash areas. They also have a big ice cream shop and a pizza parlor. And then the rooms themselves are designed for families. And that's how we discovered it because they have, like, built in, like a wolf den cave type thing where it's all thematic and you can have bunk beds. And it's just so fun. And so for our family, really, throughout the years, it's been such a gift. And there's been different times where for whatever reason, we couldn't celebrate something in the traditional way. And we would go there and it was so fun. Definitely check and see when they're doing good deals, because it can, at certain times of year, get pricey. But.

And that's not a commercial. Like, they don't pay us to say, not at all. Hey, just drop a quick little ad here and make it look like it's not an adult. It has been. We enjoy it. We've had a lot of fun there over the years. And so just be willing to try some new things. But in all of it, I'd be remiss without saying, don't forget to make Jesus the reason for this 100%. And it's so easy to get so caught up in just the festivities that you can go through the whole Christmas season. And it's just about presence and lights and experiences and all these other things and leave Jesus completely out of it. So make sure in whatever you're doing, celebrate and have fun. And God gives us so much freedom to celebrate and have fun in just so many different ways. But don't forget to always bring it back to Jesus and remind your kids, remind yourselves that, like, this is why we're celebrating and he's the real gift and make that aspect an important part, not only at Christmas time, but in all parts of the year. And so even if you're out of the habit of going to church, I would say find a really good Christmas service and go to, you know, most churches I know ours is this way. We. We put so much work and planning and effort and prayer into preparing a really great Christmas celebration service, usually on Christmas Eve or near that time. Most churches do that, and so go and take part in that. It's going to be such a meaningful time. I know. I look forward to that church service every year. It's so meaningful. It's fun. There's always a lot of fun, creative elements and festive things, and then it's an inspiring reminder of what Christmas is all about. And so just make sure that that's part of the tradition, even if that's a brand new tradition to say, you know what, we're gonna start going to church for a Christmas service.

Absolutely.

I think that'll be very meaningful to you.

It's so meaningful. And, you know, one thing we kind of added in recent years, we used to always go to something called a Bethlehem village that was at a local church in our town, where it would take you through what Bethlehem would have looked like back when Jesus was born. And just really cool. It has the animals and everything. Well, they stopped doing that, and I think it was because of COVID And so these last couple, we were like, you know, I miss that aspect of it because of course, you know, we know Jesus is the reason for the season. We obviously are in church every Sunday and beyond, and we knew we were going to go to church, but there was something really special about taking a moment to kind of picture it, you know. And so I ended up kind of doing some research and found this other local church in town that doesn't do a village per se, but they do a live nativity. And many places have this. And some of them are like, drive through live nativities, especially if you live in a cold place. We don't live in a cold place. It's pretty mild around wintertime. And so this church, you guys, they go all out. They even build this big stable of sorts where somebody acts as if they're the angel up there. I don't even know how they get up there, but it's like a teenager dressed as an angel.

I did see the angel checking his phone this year a little bit.

Oh, really?

But other than that, very, very.

That's teenager for you right there. No, but it's so sweet. It gets their whole church involved. You can donate. Like, it's free, but you can donate. And I think they made like they. They Made treats for everybody. Oh, yeah, there was hot cocoa.

They had a. One of the wise men had a real camel you could go up to. They had animals that the kids could pet. And it was just so cool. And it does. It helps you picture the humanity and just how real this story is.

Right?

These are real animals, real people. Because the story is real animals, real people. Not plastic figurines, not statues or stained glass. But all this is real. And that's why we celebrate that Jesus really has come. He's Emmanuel, God with us. And because of that, we can have hope and peace and joy and purpose, not only at Christmas, but all year round.

That's right. And I will tell you, too, you get some really interesting questions from your kids when you go to things like this, because it makes them think about it. And I always loved our conversations on the way home because they would just ask about how it all happened and that time of, you know, that time in history when Jesus was born. It's just really cool. And so it hopefully will be a gift to your family, too. If you've never been to, definitely look just around your local area for a live Nativity. And I think you'll be so glad to bring your kids to that. You know, there's always new things coming out in communities. I think just frequent your. The calendar kind of for your area. That's something I do. They're usually online. And just look for some new things you can incorporate into your Christmas season that will help your family grow closer together, but also to really celebrate the reason for Christmas, which is Jesus.

So good, guys. Hey, Merry Christmas from our family to yours. Thank you so much for your encouragement and support of this ministry. And we just appreciate you so much. And we pray that this Christmas is your best one yet. God bless. We'll see you real soon. Bye, guys.