Happy Christmas!
The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful times of the year.
For myself I haven't always thought so but then I didn't have a lot of the traditional family stuff going down after my siblings all moved away, In the end, it was my parents and I and where my Mom decided to make reservations that year.
Everyone is different.
When I think of the holidays I think about what I miss are the weekends in MI at my (technically) great aunts farm. I miss the shelties, snowmobiles, tractors, horses, cousins, stories, life, feeling free and needing to go to mentally recuperate.
I miss the old movies, the big family parties where the other cousins were people that were OK but I didn't know very well....I was not the most talkative unless I knew you well. The funky gifts- the year my aunt and uncle gave me a bird marionette...."____ you know those damn feathers about did me in." In the summer the knowledge of which shrubs had the branches so you could run through them without tripping in your swim suit.....the flowers...and that stupid cactus "Don't go near the cactus, it will shoot spines at you." (I have some of the cactus now. I love it) the yucca, the money plants....
The holidays. The year that we did not having a good working car and having to drive up in a Pinto that had been recalled. Mind you the Pinto had no heat and there were 4 of us in the back seat with a fern on our laps for my cousin....we drew names for gifts back then- the adults did anyway. If you gave to the kids you gave to the kids...I don't remember it being mandatory.
I miss my Daddy, I miss my cousins, I miss being about 12....riding on the snowmobile and going against the hill, Daddy almost dumped us into the ditch...I miss the cold and the ginger snaps and the hot chocolate. I miss the smells....my aunt would make gobs of food and then have this room in the basement with a fridge for drinks and we would eat until we were done. I miss the fudge, and the funny spritz cookies and the weird food....even the stuff I would never be caught dead eating.
Then it was songs, stories, talking....presents. The year I got a kitten, from my sister, and everyone kept telling me that my aunt loved me because she never allowed animals in the house.....Those old times may not have been perfect; there were plenty of negatives....I remember those too. But I remember the love that was there and no matter how bad it got; going home to MI meant that it was a safe haven for us to be us. I never felt more like myself when I was there.
The cuter half feels the same way about the cabin. The boy feels like that about our current house.
The holidays are supposed to be the times where we enjoy things, remember the good stuff, try to forget the bad and ignore the rest.
It doesn't always work that way.
I think as we get older the holidays get more complicated. there is always the family order garbage...then the trained things where people who don't know anything about you or who you are have already made distinct judgment calls. The drama.
I guess I was lucky. I missed out on that drama stuff. The drama I mean. Since there were 3 of us (Mom, Daddy and I) for so long there wasn't a lot of drama going down.....we did what we did.
Maybe that is what we need now. To do what we need to do and forget the rest of the stress, the anger and the frustration of trying to do it all and do too much.
The cuter half and I try to cram too much into one day. Maybe we need to stop craming as much as we can in and do what we can do.
Maybe that would be a better Christmas tradition than we have now.
For myself I haven't always thought so but then I didn't have a lot of the traditional family stuff going down after my siblings all moved away, In the end, it was my parents and I and where my Mom decided to make reservations that year.
Everyone is different.
When I think of the holidays I think about what I miss are the weekends in MI at my (technically) great aunts farm. I miss the shelties, snowmobiles, tractors, horses, cousins, stories, life, feeling free and needing to go to mentally recuperate.
I miss the old movies, the big family parties where the other cousins were people that were OK but I didn't know very well....I was not the most talkative unless I knew you well. The funky gifts- the year my aunt and uncle gave me a bird marionette...."____ you know those damn feathers about did me in." In the summer the knowledge of which shrubs had the branches so you could run through them without tripping in your swim suit.....the flowers...and that stupid cactus "Don't go near the cactus, it will shoot spines at you." (I have some of the cactus now. I love it) the yucca, the money plants....
The holidays. The year that we did not having a good working car and having to drive up in a Pinto that had been recalled. Mind you the Pinto had no heat and there were 4 of us in the back seat with a fern on our laps for my cousin....we drew names for gifts back then- the adults did anyway. If you gave to the kids you gave to the kids...I don't remember it being mandatory.
I miss my Daddy, I miss my cousins, I miss being about 12....riding on the snowmobile and going against the hill, Daddy almost dumped us into the ditch...I miss the cold and the ginger snaps and the hot chocolate. I miss the smells....my aunt would make gobs of food and then have this room in the basement with a fridge for drinks and we would eat until we were done. I miss the fudge, and the funny spritz cookies and the weird food....even the stuff I would never be caught dead eating.
Then it was songs, stories, talking....presents. The year I got a kitten, from my sister, and everyone kept telling me that my aunt loved me because she never allowed animals in the house.....Those old times may not have been perfect; there were plenty of negatives....I remember those too. But I remember the love that was there and no matter how bad it got; going home to MI meant that it was a safe haven for us to be us. I never felt more like myself when I was there.
The cuter half feels the same way about the cabin. The boy feels like that about our current house.
The holidays are supposed to be the times where we enjoy things, remember the good stuff, try to forget the bad and ignore the rest.
It doesn't always work that way.
I think as we get older the holidays get more complicated. there is always the family order garbage...then the trained things where people who don't know anything about you or who you are have already made distinct judgment calls. The drama.
I guess I was lucky. I missed out on that drama stuff. The drama I mean. Since there were 3 of us (Mom, Daddy and I) for so long there wasn't a lot of drama going down.....we did what we did.
Maybe that is what we need now. To do what we need to do and forget the rest of the stress, the anger and the frustration of trying to do it all and do too much.
The cuter half and I try to cram too much into one day. Maybe we need to stop craming as much as we can in and do what we can do.
Maybe that would be a better Christmas tradition than we have now.
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