It's Christmas time! Aside from the snow, this is my favorite time of year. I officially started turning on the Lite FM Christmas station over Thanksgiving break, when the weather turned cold enough to suggest snow and I was on vacation, which I decided was a signal for me to transition passed Thanksgiving and into Christmas.
I noticed something this year though. I have responsibilities. (Don't cry for me. Don't pity me. And if you've said "well duh," know that that's what I say to myself all the time!) However, it was the first year that the reality of my life hit me. The day after Thanksgiving 95% of all my Christmas shopping was done, my Christmas cards had been signed and sent, and I do not own Christmas decorations, as it is not my place to decorate. I suddenly was happy to have all my Christmas "responsibilities" out of the way, and that knowledge made me take a step back. I was excited to be done. The idea of having no other holiday obligations until Christmas itself actually made me happy, and that threw me for a bit of a reality check. It is not that the joy of the season is gone, but the whimsy, the idealism, and the ease has changed.
Now, I have responsibilities. I have a job to go back to on Monday, I have bills to pay every month, I have car payments, insurance payments, and credit card payments to make, gas and groceries to buy, and a savings account to maintain so that I can accomplish things in the future. I have family parties to schedule, doctors appointments to schedule, work emails to address, errands to run, and food to make daily. No more are the days of having Mom and Dad drive you to the next family party or prepare your meals for you, you have no more completely empty weekends to fill with sleepovers and movie marathons on the couch, and the general fantasy of the season has changed from a naïve whimsy to an enjoyed quick vacation.
It was then, wrapping the last present for family and helping my boyfriend set up his own Christmas tree that I remembered with longing and fondness of the Christmases of my childhood. I used to spend an entire weekend with my Aunt, making gingerbread houses and watching the claymation holiday movies. I spent a Saturday with my mom making hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies, watching White Christmas while they baked, and finished the night with a full family marathon of The Santa Clause, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Garfield's Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. We used to put up decorations one weekend and spread out shopping and wrapping over the remainder of the weekends, listening to Christmas music while we worked, reveling in the holiday and the joy. There were snowmen to build and Christmas cards to open, and there was always someone else to make sure you had the work done or got where you needed to go. It wasn't a holi-DAY but a holi-month.
It is times like that that I miss, and times like now that make me appreciate how truly amazing the Christmases of my childhood were. They were magical and memorable, never to be truly replicated but always to be admirably remembered. So, I hope that you are finding your holidays enjoyable, and if you have kids or little nephews and nieces, remember that these are the Christmases they will look back on someday and wish that they, too, could replicate.
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