Who Needs Traditions?!

For the past six Christmases we have caroled our neighbors and friends and delivered a homemade treat. Now, I am not a baker, but once a year I do get out the measuring cups, spices and a new bag of flour (it usually goes bad before I ever use it). This year was no different. I made thirty mini-loaves of yummy lemon bread. (Kari M's recipe, of course!) This took me about five hours of mixing, pouring, cleaning, cooling, wrapping, repeat. They really did look cute with their homemade tags and ribbon. Now, why do I do this, you might ask. I am asking myself the exact same thing. I really want my kids to have memories of visiting our friends and sharing the Christmas spirit as they grow up. Instead, I think they will have memories of this:

"Get back into the car, sing next time, I know I can't stay on tune, get off your brother, don't say bad words, get back into the car, the quicker you go the quicker this will be over, sing!, get off the floor, put your shoes back on, get your feet out of your hat, quit hitting your sister, get back into the car, just a few more people, why are we doing this?, get out of the car, do you know how long I baked?, get back into the car!!!!, we will NOT do this next year!"

I even told Sawyer , "You are going to be so sad and will be missing this when you are on your mission." Who am I fooling? I wish I was on my mission! The few good parts were how cute Jackson was singing and giving out the bread and how happy our sweet friends and neighbors were to see us and hear our "harmonies". One really funny part was when Sarah started complaining that Drew had a heater vent on his side of the car and she didn't. Matt burst out, "Well, why don't you call Honda about that?!" We all just stopped and started to laugh. Even Sarah had to laugh. We'll probably be going out again next year. I do have 365 days to forget the majority of the experience. Traditions.....