Once and Done

 For as many traditions that have been a big hit with my family, there are some that have definitely fallen into the once and done category. There were ideas that I thought would become a well-loved family tradition but simply flopped. Some were too work intensive, some didn't taste good, and some were just not well received. There are a few that we still laugh at, and although they didn't make the cut, they stuck in our memories. 

Pinterest launched when I was in the thick of mothering. It was such a great place to find ideas, and some were as simple as looking at the pin and recreating it. That's where I got a lot of my holiday-themed food ideas. But even thought they were Pinterest worthy, they didn't continue at our house after the first go round. We made things like brownie Christmas trees with candy cane trunks, cheese stick snowmen, and mini chocolate covered doughnut reindeer with pretzel antlers. Nothing was wrong with any of them; they just didn't make a second appearance. 

Then there were countless recipes that I swore would make the perfect holiday meal, but were voted out, with me casting the first vote! I think the worst was Colcannon, an Irish soup. I don't even think we ate the leftovers. One year the flan I made for Cinco de Mayo was an oozing mess, and I never made it again. I'm sure there are others, perhaps I just blocked them out. 

One of the memories we still laugh at was our Christmas carol contest. Ida went all out and made an angel costume (over achiever) to wear as she sang "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". John, who was four and the biggest Mickey Mouse fan ever, wore Christmas jammies and sung the theme song to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, while tossing his stuffed Christmas Mickey in the air. I threw on a hat and scarf and sang "Winter Wonderland", complete with jingle bells. Tom, the most enthusiastic performer in the family, wimped out due to a cough that he claimed would ruin his chances of winning. He played a carol on his "dancing" laptop. Lame, but excusable since he wasn't feeling 100%. I had to look back at my family blog to see who won--no surprise, it was Ida. What's funny is the last line of that post was "We can't wait for next year's rematch". Despite our enthusiasm that year, we never did have that rematch!

Another laughable tradition attempt was one I read on a blog. It sounded sweet, but the children thought it was weird. The idea was to find a baby Jesus - I used our Little People one - wrap him up and hide him under the tree. After all the other gifts were opened, pull out that last gift and have one of your children open it. The point was to show that Jesus is the best gift of all. Ida opened it and thought it was really weird that I had wrapped the baby Jesus that we had for years and give it as a gift. I do remember being disappointed, but what worked for another family, didn't work for ours. 

I'm sure I could dig up some other failures or bad ideas, but these few examples show that it's okay if your family doesn't love an idea that you thought would become a precious family moment year after year; there's always another idea waiting to be tried. And those flops might be good for a laugh for years to come.