Isn’t it funny how family traditions come about?
While it used to be that traditions were simply passed down in families from generation to generation, these days, we seem to develop new traditions all on our own. Creating traditions is in right now. They come from the Pinterest searches that are six keywords deep and from the Instagram accounts we scroll through in the wee hours of the night when we’ve been up with our babies for the 19th time. They come from friends we adore and from the aisles of Target. Traditions come from those fleeting moments with your kids where something magical sticks and you know that you have to recreate that feeling over and over again.
For our family, one of those traditions is the Valentine Worm.
Yes, a worm. On Valentine’s Day.
Don’t ask me where the Worm came from, because honestly I don’t really know. I inherited him from my husband’s family. The Valentine Worm always brought him something special on the morning of Valentine’s Day and, I suppose, when he left home, we adopted him.
The Valentine Worm will bring them a new outfit to wear to school on Valentine’s Day and usually something special for breakfast, too. It’s simple and kind of boring and I usually spend the day before Valentine’s Day in a mad scramble to pick out outfits that will please a I-only-wear-leggings-with-shorts-over-them tween girl, a first grader who is still mastering the art of mixing patterns, and a nearly 5-year-old boy who, in all honesty, prefers to simply wear Despicable Me underwear and nothing else.
But, somehow, the Valentine Worm comes back every year and with much anticipation. It thrills me that as Valentine’s Day approaches every year, they wonder if the Valentine Worm will come back. And every year, we play dumb and make them lay out their outfits for school the next day, just in case he is too worn out to inch his way to our house this year. I mean, can you even imagine being a worm and having to haul outfits for three kids all of the way from your worm house? At least the Easter Bunny can hop. This little guy has it rough when it comes to holiday creatures, in my opinion.
This year, since Valentine’s Day is on a Saturday, the Worm is actually arriving a few days early so that the kids can have their outfits to wear to their class parties. See… even worms have tricks up their sleeves. Apparently they also wear shirts.
Okay, dish it. What are your family’s kind-of-weird holiday traditions?