College Grad

So my oldest, our son, will graduate from college in a few weeks. 

We are so proud of him!

I really want to have a party for him.

But...Here's the thing. 

I come from a family that has parties, but who doesn't invite people from outside the family or from far away because, I was told, it is too much pressure on other people to invite them to travel to a party and to bring a gift - and if you invite people who decide they cannot attend, the invitation is like asking for a gift anyway.

So though my family had LOTS of barbeques and get-togethers, birthdays for anyone over 18 were family affairs, and there were no graduation parties or anything like that. In fact, even praying in church we were taught NOT to ask for anything - this was a puritan church up in Boston. Oldest American church body. You didn't ask God to provide anything. You did it yourself and just thanked Him for the good in your life.I guess that's where the party thing came from.

SO it is VERY challenging for me to have a party like this. Even when he graduated, we ended up just having a very small party of close family only. For my daughter's high school graduation we did the same, but I did have a few friends of my own attend the party.

That was hard enough emotionally. On the one hand I wanted to celebrate my children's accomplishments, but on the other hand I felt that we couldn't do it the way everyone else was because it would come off as greedy.  BUT the majority of our family lives FAR away.  And guess what?  

I am having a party for him anyway.  

I am literally sick to my stomach worrying about it - but I think that the worst that could happen would be that no one shows up and it would end up being just our immediate family of 6 at the party.  So, I thought, why  should I worry?  We can have a good time anyway!  This will be great. We are so proud of him, and my husband has had some rough times in the past year, so he needs to see this visible expression of our son's accomplishments.  

Of course, he is leaving the planning to me,  ha ha ha!

But the fact is that I AM worried about pulling it off. So say some prayers for us,  mostly that my son knows how much we love him.  

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Other than work, and sleep - I went to bed at 5:30pm last night! - and driving my kids around (lol), I have been thinking about this a lot.  I will keep you posted!

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

...from Lori@Kitchenfunk