My mom and I have been grumbling this season…along with most in our family. Christmas is just not the same. It use to be my most favorite season! I am not sure I feel that way anymore. With all the major loss we’ve had in our lives over the last 5 years, I just cannot get into the spirit. 5 years ago my grandma, mother-in-law and many other very important family members were very much alive and all the traditions I had grown up with (or adopted when I married Jason) we’re wonderful. Zoo lights, decorating moms house, Christmas Eve extravaganza with my moms family for lunch, Jason’s family for burritos, and then my other grandmas for drinks, drunk Santa and driving around to see all the Christmas lights oh and Christmas PJ’s. Christmas morning was pure excitement, getting up to eat something delicious that my mom made, opening some gifts and enjoying family time and then sprint cleaning and cooking to throw the biggest Christmas party EVER with all my parents friends.
The holidays
Now it’s nothing like that. We still go to zoo lights, mom decorates (most of the time a few days before Christmas and it’s nothing like it was), Christmas Eve is spent with just our immediate family, as grandma and grandpa are both passed and that tradition has ended, Jason’s family still gets together usually a few nights before Christmas which is still wonderful but slightly out of place. Christmas Day I wake up and wait for Jason to get home, my parents to come over and then spend time enjoying my kids rip into gifts. It’s not terrible, it’s still a celebration of Christs birth, but man it just isn’t the same. It makes it difficult to get into the spirit.
I’m trying to create traditions. We always visit Santa, I insist on zoo lights even when everyone else could be fine with bypassing them, Jason and I still drive and look at lights on Christmas Eve, we still spend time with family and I host my dads side a week after Christmas. Maybe someday these traditions will feel normal…I hope.
How’s your holiday celebrations going?
