Advent Day 13 - Today I am Grateful for Our Little Traditions

We have a few little traditions unique to our (very small) family unit.  I usually buy a holiday sweater, and retire by giving away the oldest and/or rattiest of the sweaters.  The ones pictured above are the best ones, and the Cardinal sweater is the newest.  I know, holiday sweaters are much derided, but I taught elementary school, and worked in a preschool before that, so I have a love of things like that, and that will probably never change!
Another tradition Matt and I began when we were married is to buy at least one (often two)  Hallmark ornament(s) every year.  (Some years we haven't been able to , and we bought or made an ornament those years)  This year's Hallmark ornaments are Father Christmas, shown in the last picture above, and The Eastern Bluebird, shown in the picture immediately above that.  This year, the annually purchased ornaments, 27 Christmases worth, plus a few special ones, are the only ornaments on the tree.  Among the special ones are the two made by Julia DuBreuil, a friend and coworker.  She has made ornaments and pins for some of us on the staff most years.  These are the two most recent, and they are always going to be on our tree.  Julie is very talented, and very generous to share her art with us.
As is traditional, Skye had to be chased away from the tree several times while I was working on it.  I have several soda cans with pennies inside, taped shut, and ready to throw at her if she gets too nosy about the tree.   We usually only have to put the cans on the piano, and she won't get to the tree, because the cans fall off and make noise and scare her.
I will post more photos of the tree, our stockings and the Christmas Eve dinner.  The dinner is the same every year:  Matt's brown sugar glazed ham, Betty Crocker Au Gratin potatoes, sweet potato balls, my Aunt Clara's baked beans, Mom's rolls, and for dessert, pumpkin pie and chocolate angel pie.   This is just what we started out doing every year, and it has pretty much stuck.  It makes for easy to reheat leftovers.

While decorating the tree, I could tell Pop was around because when I had my moments of the multi-focal lenses in my glasses driving me nuts, or my fingers not cooperating with the little ornament hooks, I swear I heard him say "You're as bad as I am, Katie Didder. You remember what your Mommy Mo told you about my magic words, now.  They backfire if you use them!"
Pop would be hanging around here right now for sure.  Matt is smoking a pork butt tonight.  Going to be some good eatin' around here tomorrow evening!  (We are taking  most of it to a party, so we won't be gorging on it and gaining all kinds of weight.)
Guess that's about all for this post.  I haven't had much time to think, let alone write this week.