The Happiness Project (15 page)

At the same time, because family traditions usually involve special decorations, special food, a special sequence of events, and participation by certain people, most traditions (other than the tradition of ordering a pizza during the Super Bowl) involve a fair amount of trouble and are a potential source of guilt, resentment, anger, and disappointment.

I was right to start my happiness project with a focus on energy. When I felt energetic, I enjoyed putting up decorations, getting out the video camera, and all the rest. When I felt low, everything seemed like a burden. Last year, I kept putting off buying a pumpkin for Halloween, and we ended up
not getting one at all.
Eliza and Eleanor didn’t seem to mind, but I was shocked by myself. That counts as Mommy malpractice in my book.

But even though we didn’t have a pumpkin, I did manage to keep up our family’s personal Halloween tradition. Every Halloween, I take a picture of Eliza and Eleanor in their costumes, put the photo in a Halloween-themed picture frame, and add it to our Halloween photo gallery. I also give a copy to each pair of grandparents, so they have their own set. This tradition takes a fair amount of effort, but it’s fun to have a set of holiday photos that we put out for just one week of the year, it gives a sense of family continuity, and it’s an excuse to give a present to the grandparents—that’s a lot of happiness bang for the buck.

My desire to be a treasure house of happy memories gave rise, however, to a problem. I didn’t know what to do with my children’s various keepsake papers, such as those Halloween pictures. I wanted the girls to have their
own copies. Where should I put them? I also wanted both girls to have a copy of their yearly birthday party invitations, the family Valentine’s cards, family wedding invitations, class photos, and so on—but where to keep all the stuff? Making little stacks in out-of-the-way cabinets and pinning papers to the bulletin board, as I’d been doing, wasn’t a good long-term solution.

A friend told me that she kept scrapbooks of such items for each of her kids, but my heart sank at the thought. I was barely keeping up with our family photo albums. Then my Eighth Commandment started flashing inside my head: “Identify the problem.” What was the problem? I wanted to save all these mementos for Eliza and Eleanor, but I didn’t know where to put them. I wanted a convenient, inexpensive, attractive way to store them that would keep them organized without taking up too much room.

Instead of moving various piles around the apartment, as I usually did when confronted with this kind of problem, I forced myself to sit and think. Convenient. Inexpensive. Attractive. Organized. Paper storage.

And just like that, I thought of a solution.
File boxes.
I bought two the very next day. Instead of buying ugly cardboard file boxes, I splurged and bought a slightly fancier version from an upscale office supply store. The boxes were a pleasing tan color, covered with a woven fabric, with proper wooden handles. I fitted out each one with a pack of hanging files.

I started with Eliza. After gathering up a lot of loose memorabilia from around the apartment, I made a folder for each year of school, past and future, in which I put her birthday party invitation, a copy of the photo I took each year on the first day of school, the program from the school holiday party, some characteristic work, our family Valentine’s card, a camp photo, and so on. Then I did the same with the few items I had for Eleanor.

These boxes make it easy to store these mementos neatly, and they’ll make great keepsakes for the girls when they’re older. How fun to imagine that when they’re fifty years old, they’ll be able to look back at their birthday party invitations from nursery school! I was so pleased with the system that I started a box for Jamie and me too, divided by year.

As I thought about the various traditions we observed, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to wait for traditions to emerge spontaneously. A “new tradition” may be a bit of an oxymoron, but that shouldn’t stop me from inventing a tradition that I wished we had.

Jamie came up with a great one: Polite Night. He suggested that every Sunday night, we set the table properly, enforce good manners, and have a nice meal together. Calling it “Polite Night” was my brilliant stroke. It turned out to be a very useful exercise and a lot of fun.

Also, when she was little, I’d started the tradition of Eliza and her grandmother taking a weekly music class together, and when Eleanor was old enough she started a weekly class, too. Judy is deeply involved in music and theater, and having this weekly date means that grandmother and granddaughter see each other at least once a week, in a context that allows Judy to impart her enthusiasm for music to the girls. Then I thought—what about their grandfather? He needed a grandchild tradition of his own, so I invented one. I proposed that a few times each year, during her vacations, Eliza would visit her grandfather at his office for lunch. He thought it was a terrific idea, and these lunches have been a great success.

I have no idea how Jamie and I started this, but we have a family tradition of yelling “Family love sandwich!” and scooping up the girls in a big tight hug. Our version of a secret handshake.

I wondered what traditions other people might observe, so on my blog, I asked readers for ideas from their families. Some of my favorites:

I couldn’t wait to suggest Pirate Dinner to my girls. What a great idea.

TAKE TIME FOR PROJECTS.

Traditions often involve projects. Celebrating every family birthday, sending out a family Valentine’s card, decorating an elaborate gingerbread house (actually, we make the houses out of graham crackers and tubs of Duncan Hines frosting)—these things are fun, but they take time, energy, planning, and patience. Inevitably, boomerang errands are involved. Out of the urge to simplify my life, I sometimes feel reluctant to undertake ambitious family projects, but at the same time, I know that these projects are a highlight of childhood—and adulthood.

Once I’d resolved to “Take time for projects,” I made a purchase that I’d been considering for a long time: I ordered a laminator. The minute it arrived, I knew it had been worth the splurge. So many possible projects! First up: Mother’s Day presents for the grandmothers. Under my direction, Eliza made a list of “Ten Reasons I Love Bunny” (her nickname for my mother) and “Ten Reasons I Love Grandma.” As she dictated, I typed up her list; then she chose a different font for each item—playing with fonts on my computer is one of her favorite things to do. Then we printed the two lists out and let Eleanor scribble on them, to add her personal touch. And then to the laminator! Suddenly these modest pieces of paper were transformed into personalized place mats. What next? Book covers, bookmarks, cards of useful phone numbers.

Inspired by the success of the laminator, I experimented with the glue gun that I’d had for years but never used. An opportunity presented itself one evening when, after Eleanor had gone to sleep, Eliza announced that she was supposed to make a “scrappy cap” to bring to school.

“What’s a scrappy cap?” I asked.

“It’s from Julie Andrews Edwards’s book,
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
,” Eliza explained. “It’s a hat that reflects our imagination.”

Now, in this situation, I knew perfectly well that as a parent, I should let my child take the lead while I merely helped gently and unobtrusively to guide her thinking.

But instead of doing that, I leaped to my feet and said, “I know what to do! Quick, run and get a baseball cap.”

While she ran to get a hat, I studied the glue gun directions and plugged it in. Then I pulled down the jars of little bitty toys that I’d collected in January.

“Now what?” panted Eliza as she arrived with her cap.

“Dump out the stuff in the jars and see what reflects your imagination. Then we’ll glue them onto this cap with a glue gun.”

“Oh, I love glue guns,” she said. “My teacher uses them.”

Eliza began combing through the mounds of toys to pick her favorites. One by one, we carefully glued them onto the hat.

“I didn’t expect this to be so
fun,
” Eliza said happily at one point. It took hours because she wanted to debate the merits of every single gimcrack, but that was fine.
Take time for projects.

Sometimes family projects pop up unexpectedly. For example, I didn’t expect picking Eliza’s birthday cake to turn into a “project.” I figured that I’d ask, as I’d asked before, “Chocolate or vanilla? Flower decorations or princesses?” and Eliza would choose. Instead, as Eliza’s birthday approached, she became utterly preoccupied with her cake. The guest list, the decorations, the activities—all these considerations paled in comparison to the question of the composition and decoration of the cake. Before my happiness project, I would have pressed her to decide quickly, so I could get the item crossed off my to-do list. But my research revealed that a key to happiness is squeezing out as much happiness as possible from a happy event.

We’ve all heard of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. By contrast, I realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must
anticipate
it,
savor
it as it unfolds,
express
happiness, and
recall
a happy memory.

Any single happy experience may be amplified or minimized, depending on how much attention you give it. For instance, if I call my parents to tell them about a funny thing that happened in the park that day, I relive the experience in my mind as I express it. Although it’s true that taking photographs sometimes makes it hard to savor a moment when it’s happening, in the future, having pictures will help me recall a happy time.

Eliza’s birthday cake gave us plenty of opportunities to enjoy the “anticipation” stage. She asked me to bring home a Baskin-Robbins brochure, and we went over every word. We visited the Baskin-Robbins Web site, where Eliza pondered the list of ice cream flavors. We made a pilgrimage to the Baskin-Robbins store, so Eliza could sample the flavors and pore over the book of possible cake decorations. At last, I thought, she’d made her decisions. Nope.

“Mom,” she asked a few days later, “can we go back to Baskin-Robbins to look at the cake book again?”

“Eliza, we spent an hour in there already. Plus your birthday is still a month away.”

“But I want to look at the book!”

Before the happiness project, I would have resisted, but now I understand now that this errand isn’t birthday party inefficiency but the
very fun itself.
It’s my Sixth Commandment: Enjoy the process. Eliza will enjoy eating the cake for only five minutes, but she can have hours of enjoyment from planning the cake. In fact, in what’s known as “rosy prospection,” anticipation of happiness is sometimes greater than the happiness actually experienced. All the more reason to revel in anticipation.

“Okay,” I relented, “if you want, we can stop off after school on Friday.”

Doing these kinds of projects showed me another way that children boost happiness: they reconnect us with sources of “feeling good” that we’ve outgrown. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t work on homemade Mother’s Day gifts, pore over Baskin-Robbins cake designs, memorize
Is
Your Mama a Llama?,
or go to the Central Park boat pond on Saturday afternoons. I wouldn’t watch
Shrek
over and over or listen to Laurie Berkner’s music. I wouldn’t visit amusement parks or the Museum of Natural History. I wouldn’t use food coloring to make Rainbow Yogurt Surprise in a shot glass. Nevertheless, I honestly do enjoy these activities with my children. I don’t just enjoy their pleasure—which I do, and that also makes me happy—I also experience my own sincere enjoyment of activities that I would otherwise never have considered.