Christmas Again and Again and Again

December 22, 2002

Welcome to Wyndspirit Dreams! I am back, after the first of three Christmases. While my dream is still one big celebration where everybody gets together at one time, this is the real world, and it isn’t always possible. However, there are advantages to having several smaller celebrations, not the least of which is Christmas will last for over a week.

The hardest work has already been done. The house is decorated, the gifts are all wrapped, the goodies are all made. (Well, close enough. There is always that one last gift that got overlooked, or a pan of goodies that was particularly popular and went too fast.) It almost seems a shame to go to all that work for just one Christmas. Of course, I’m the fortunate one who gets to come home for all three Christmases, but if we can’t all be together, it’s nice that my sisters will each get a Christmas tailored to their specific tastes and needs.

Today was Christmas with Nancy. Very casual and low-key. It wasn’t as wild as usual, because they chose not to open most of their gifts, but to bring them home to open on Christmas, but Sarah read the Christmas story from her Bible and we each opened a couple gifts. We ate goodies, visited, ate more goodies, enjoyed some Christmas music, visited… Niece Sarah insisted on filling Christmas stockings for those of us who wouldn’t be sharing the actual day with them. Her gifts? Neatly wrapped pieces of a large Hershey bar that had been one of her own gifts. (Yes, she really was being generous. She likes Hershey bars.)

The 24th and 25th will be Christmas with Brenda. It will be ultra-traditional. Brenda is the baby of the family, and she does not like change. Mom and Dad and I will open most of our gifts with her, because we know she will be disappointed if there isn’t a large pile under the tree. We will open gifts Christmas Eve, and I can guarantee this time we won’t forget to turn on the Christmas tree lights. We will read the Christmas story again, and this time it will be the King James version we grew up with. Brenda will probably turn up her nose at my Christmas CDs and will go rummaging for the old Chipmunks record we grew up listening to. We will hang our stockings on the cardboard fireplace, and Christmas morning we will start the day munching on more goodies, this time from the socks we hung, and continuing to admire the gifts we opened the night before, and we will have a traditional Christmas dinner.

Then the 31st will be Christmas with LeAnn. They will come as early as Duane can get her moving. (LeAnn is no more a morning person than I am.) The kids will burst into the house with arms laden with the presents they already opened and want to show off to Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa will attempt to be interested, but will be totally bemused by today’s high-tech gadgets and toys. The kids will launch into detailed explanations of how they work that will go way over their grandparents’ heads, and LeAnn and Duane will attempt to translate between the generations. Most likely Dad will appropriate the most interesting of the toys and invent a totally new use for it, to the kids’ mixed dismay and amusement. And then we will open gifts. The gifts from the family will not be high-tech or expensive, but the kids will love them nevertheless, eagerly showing off to their parents, as though their parents weren’t sitting right next to them watching them open the package. This Christmas will be shared with friends as well as family, because Duane’s mother and stepfather will be joining us for the meal. We will eat too much and visit too loudly and have a great time, and in the evening everybody will leave in a wave of chaos to match the one they came in on.

And the house will be suddenly too silent. Christmas will be over for another year. And we will all be tired and glad we don’t have to think about it for another year. But we will be a wee bit sad to see it end, and we will already start thinking about how we’re going to get together over Easter.
 
 
 

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meadowlark@wyndspirit.com
Wyndspirit Dreams