Lazy night last night…

I spent most of last night just hanging around my house. When I got home from work, my sister’s fiance’s brother was at our house wanting to cut our lawn. It needed it severely, so I reliquished $40 and had it finished. I really need to get a lawnmower.

I spent the remainder of the evening chatting on Trillian and starting my crusade to learn CSS. I got to spend some time talking to one of my cousins and after some time conversation turned to the sad state of our family traditions.

Both sets of my aunts and uncles that usually had family events decided to move this year, so our settings are all messed up. Our grandma decided to stop having Thanksgiving and Christmas at her house a few years back and much of our childhood traditions went away when the venue changed. Even our annual Euchre games that used to stretch until 3 or 4 in the morning have been whittled down to stopping at 10 pm this past year.

We also lamented the fact that our older cousins have taken to coddling their children. In our day (there, I used that phrase finally!) we could clearly recount passing out in one of the spare bedrooms or living rooms at my aunts house, only to wake up en route back home after the parents got tired of cards and conversation. My cousins have taken to whisking off their kids (who are generally the same age as we were then) at 7 pm come hell or high water. Their attitudes have become MUCH less fun in recent years. People like prove to me that you can maintain youthful energy and fun conversation skills after children come, so I have no idea what their problem is.

I think we’re going to make some efforts towards reinstating as much of the old traditions as we can in order to preserve them for our kids, since apparently one generation up has decided they weren’t necessary. I understand that times change and people grow up, but there are a few things that can be done to mitigate the impact that life has on two days a year.

I was pretty surprised to get agreement from my cousin, since we usually don’t talk about stuff like this very often. I usually hang out with his bigger, dumber brother but that may start to change soon.