Tomorrow is a very special day for me.
Tomorrow is the Halloween Frolic at Husband’s school.
At last year’s frolic, someone had taken something very sentimental to me; a tradition in the form of a bucket, and I was sad. No, sad isn’t the word. Mad. Mad? No, not mad either. Is there a word that envelops a sad-mad-inconsoleable-disappointed-heartbroken-enraged-defeated-guilty feeling? If so, I was that. If I was a 2-year-old, this is what I would have looked like (because truthfully this is what I felt like on the inside):
That bucket had become a symbol to our family: a Halloween tradition that also happened to be our first tradition. The first year that Daughter was born, we placed her in the bucket as an itty-bitty thing and snapped a picture. The second year, she stood in the bucket. By the third year she towered over the bucket and with a new baby in our brood, Son wouldn’t escape the Halloween bucket picture either.
A few days after the loss of our bucket, some of PTO ladies from the school, gave Husband another one. It was a nice bucket. Different. Green. It was a lovely gesture. I would learn to accept that we would continue our bucket picture ritual in this new bucket.
* * *
I could tell you that tomorrow will be special because I’ve turned over a new leaf and realized that the new bucket could be a symbol for new traditions, that I’ve forgotten all about the old bucket and that it never crossed my mind again. I could tell you that I’ve grown as a mother, as a human, and realized that maybe the jerk who stole our first family tradition really needed that bucket more and so I moved past my sad-mad-inconsoleable-disappointed-heartbroken-enraged-defeated-guilty feeling. But none of this would be true.
No, tomorrow’s Frolic is a special day because the bucket is back. Let me repeat: THE BUCKET IS BACK.
It isn’t the bucket that Dude stole but it is the same black tin bucket with its quarter moon and glorious stars and smirky jack-o-lanterns and creepy BOO print that began our bucket picture tradition. Turns out, Husband spotted the same one in the middle school office being used as a decorative holiday planter. A trade was made; the bucket came back to us like it was always meant to be ours, like the Universe wanted to see how important the bucket (rather, the tradition) was before returning it. Those fabulous secretaries might never truly know how much their trade meant to this momma and I… well… there isn’t a single word for this elated-surpised-grateful-hopeful-wondrous feeling.
The bucket that began as a candy collector is now not only a tradition – our first family tradition – but one that comes with a story… and a happy ending. And who doesn’t love a happy ending?
Stop back tomorrow for the newest Halloween Bucket Picture and…
Happiest of Hollows!
I’d love to hear some of your traditions that might be unique to your family…