Old holidays, new traditions?

Coming up on the 4th of July sets my brain a buzzing.  Until a couple of months ago, when I made the decision to get a divorce, all of our family traditions were decided jointly by the STBE and myself.  Since making that decision a couple of holidays have passed, Easter, Mother's Day, mine and R's birthdays to name a few and we haven't really celebrated them any differently than in the past (except minus the presence of the STBE) but that doesn't mean we can't.  Until now I've had to temper how I wanted to observe holidays based on what the STBE wanted to do mostly just because he's a big bahumbug when it comes to holidays.  Well, no more!

This doesn't mean I have any grand schemes on new and fun ways to observe the 4th of July, let alone the other holidays, but it does mean that if I come up with something then darn it we'll do it!  Nothing new or grand will probably happen this year, just because of the very limited student budget I'm on currently.  But once I'm working and able to afford some more creative and fun things I think this is really going to be lots of fun.  I'm not wanting to do this just to spend money or basically say "we're better off without you!" to the STBE.  I'm wanting to do this to make fun memories for C & R.  Growing up I didn't have a lot, I was raised by a single working mother myself, but my memories are pretty much all happy ones.  Especially when it comes to the holidays.

Now I will admit that some of the holidays I want to observe with the kids aren't mainstream.  I consider myself pagan and I have in years past very casually noted the changing of the seasons and the other typical pagan holidays.  Some of "my" holidays coincide nicely with "regular" holidays (Easter/Ostara, Halloween/Samhain, & Christmas/Yule) and I've just kind of let them blur into one another so far.  I'm thinking that I may finally have the chance to elaborate a bit on the less mainstream side of them and thats exciting to me.  I have always wanted C & R to be well rounded in the ways of the world and caring tolerant people and I think exposing them to a wider variety of ways that people celebrate the holidays is one way to do that. 

I think my only concern/worry/hesitation in doing this, in elaborating on my own pagan holidays, is actually in regards to L.  She knows I consider myself pagan but I don't think we've really ever had a talk about what that means when it comes to holidays and such.  Its not like I'm a practicing witch or anything but lighting certain color candles or making certain foods on my holidays because of the power those things hold might weird her out a bit.  I'm not sure.  This is probably something we need to talk about but I'm pretty sure it can be saved for once she finally moves out here and we actually have the opportunity to celebrate holidays together.