Yule is coming...

...and again,we are woefully under prepared and quickly running short on time.

I think part of the problem is, as someone I know once pointed out, once you have kids, part of the holidays is making your own traditions rather than necessarily following the traditions of your respective families - and we've spent 2 of the last 4 holiday seasons with a child in the hospital. So really....that's our most traditional thing. Not a good foundation for building a tradition, really - at least, not a tradition anyone really wants to follow.

Another part of the problem is that many traditions this time of year (starting at Halloween for secular and Christian folks, and really all the way back to Lughnassadh - a harvest festival - for Pagan folk, and running all the way through New Years) center around food. When you've got 2 kids with feeding difficulties, normal meals can be pretty darn complicated, and big family feasts even more so.

And, too, having nurses here again is putting a damper on many things. I've got Christian friends with trached kiddos who talk about telling nurses that they're Christian and they play Christian TV shows and sing songs and such, and if that's a problem don't come back...we likely would have very few nurses if we tried that.

Plans for a little altar space and nature table were largely scrapped last winter, though are being revived in another form. Posters and other things never got made while Leaf was in the hospital.

Even putting up a tree is fraught with tension, between 2 cats, a 4 year old who will climb anything, and a 1 1/2 year old who puts everything in her mouth....except solid foods. The fact that we didn't put up a tree Acorn's first holiday at home caused friction with nurses - some were convinced we were Jewish, others were convinced we hated Christians (WTF?), and some just figured it was part of our long list of quirks.