My Fourth of July Complaint

Christmas was meant for children.  So is the Fourth of July.  Family activities filled with fun and family that make memories to last a lifetime.  Except for my grandkids, apparently!

At the very least, the Fourth must have public fireworks...and personal sparklers.  I had them as a kid.  Looked forward to them, in fact.  Fun after dark!  And ever since my grandchildren were old enough to manage them, I've bought sparklers for us to play with on the patio.  It was always a happy--but watchful--occasion.  But...this year....what happened?  Have the children outgrown sparklers?????  The grown-ups haven't.  I'm crushed!

Everyone got home too late in the Fourth to legally imbibe with the sparklers, although they don't make noise.  We were all quite tired...so...I saved the sparklers (this year's and ones left over from two years ago) for the 5th.  When it came time to go to the patio to play, Denis was ready.  Luda was ready.  Robin said she'd participate.  Ryan, however, was in a mood and at odds with his mother, so he opted out.  Robin came out and did ONE sparkler.  Period.  Denis and Luda--both Russian-born and not necessarily into the whole fireworks thing--burned quite a few...and then, as there was no one else to enjoy them with us, gave up and went to bed.

Am I so doggone old-fashioned that I'm not up on the trends of today?  Seriously, what red-blooded American kid would pass up a chance to play with sparklers?  What did I miss??

Now I am wondering if the mentality about the "happy patio event" has anything to do with the "happy Christmas tree decorating" events.  When I was a kid, decorating the Christmas tree was a family effort.  In my mind, we enjoyed it.  It wasn't filled with hot chocolate and other delightful things, but we decorated our tree as a family (minus Dad whose job it was to put up the tree and put on the lights, and then sit back to let us do the rest.  Although he didn't take part, he was present and encouraging).  When I became a mother, I tried to re-create those days...attempted to make decorating the tree special.  No matter how I tried, however, I couldn't get my then-husband to participate beyond setting up the tree.  He would actually leave...but I apparently put up a good enough front that my daughter never knew how disappointed I was with that.  What she remembered, and what she wanted to create for her children (and worked hard for), was a happy family event.  Unfortunately, more than once, the kids were contentious and fussing with each other (probably due to fatigue), and Meg's response was to have a meltdown.  She would dissolve into tears...and I think the kids remember that.  Now, they don't want to have anything to do with decorating the family Christmas tree for fear of not behaving as expected.  Or so it seems.  I could be dead-wrong...but now I wonder if the same mentality follows the stupid sparkler tradition.

Okay.  So I won't buy any more sparklers for the Fourth.  I get the message:  I'm a dinosaur.  The bigger question is:  How much would it hurt them to humor me?  I won't be around that many more years.  Soon enough, I will be gone, and I hope beyond hope that they will remember their time on Walton Drive as happy memories.  If so, I can die happy!