I love the Holiday Season! I love the smells of baking, the twinkling lights, the decorations, the colored lights on the porch...I just love everything about it!
When my grandchildren were small, I promised myself I would give them the most fantastical Christmas I could conjure up...I wanted it to be magical, but homey and rememberable.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we would all go tree hunting into the local forests and trudge through snow to find the best tree we could. Sometimes, if the snow was deep enough, we would take the sleds and the kids would entertain themselves on small runs. When they got cold, we would have marshmallows and cocoa around a small campfire.
The next week, Larry would set up the tree and put the colored lights on the porch. We would run twinkle lights around fir branches along the banister and hang giant lit candy canes from it. Then he would set up three twinkle-light deer in the flower bed next to the porch.
I would set up the Christmas Village above the entertainment center and decorate the tree. The entire house would sparkle "Christmas Time".
And then I would start the baking. For many of my more energetic years, I would put together boxes to mail to loved ones far away and 8-10 Christmas Baskets for local friends. Our most favorite thing to do for ourselves, was to take an afternoon on into an evening to deliver those baskets, wish our dearest friends a Merry Christmas, and oftentimes raise a cup of good cheer.
I would just load the tree with presents for the kids! I spent the week that Larry was gone hunting, to wrap them while watching Christmas Movies. Larry would come home and pronounce another year of "wretched excess'. However, as he had asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and my answer (as always) was for him not to complain about the pile of presents under the tree....he could not complain, could he? ...lol...
Granted. As the years went by, it became more and more stressful for me to do all these things, and as years progressed, I dropped one tradition at a time until, two years ago, I gave up the Big Christmas here at our house. I packed up all the lovely ceramic Christmas Village houses and packed them into boxes and passed them on to my daughter. I toned down the baking to a couple of kinds of cookies, fudge and some snack mixes. The boxes to loved ones now consist of fudge and cookies. We no longer visit friends for drinks. I no longer am in charge of Christmas Dinner. I have passed the baton. And in many ways, the holiday season is less for it. I suppose it is the natural progression of things. But it does make me rather sad...
Now, we are making new traditions...We started this season with a Christmas Movie matinee (because we hate driving home in the dark). I decorate three small fake trees with fragile decorations, because I do not have to worry about children and puppies knocking them off. We only put up colored lights on the part of the porch we do not need a ladder to reach. We start watching "Christmas movies" the week before Thanksgiving. (Die Hard is always the first one!) Things are simpler, the holiday is diminished. But it is ok...we move a little slower. We reminisce...we are officially in Grandpa and Nani mode!
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