Happy Holidays

Holiday greetings to all my blog friends. I hope you are able to spend quality time with family or friends during this time.

I have been thinking about how my experience of Christmas has evolved over the years. As a child we always spent Christmas Eve with my mother’s large family. There were many aunts and uncles and cousins and a Scandinavian “smorgasbord” with Swedish meatballs and other side dishes. We always had a quiet morning with just our immediate family on Christmas Day. I loved having those few hours of quiet time.

When my own children were growing up we celebrated with a couple of variations of time with my family and Wayne’s family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day afternoon. We always had a quiet Christmas Day morning with just our two children, opening gifts slowly and having a special breakfast of popovers. There were too many gifts, and too much packaging and wrapping paper, but I don’t want to judge our earlier lives based on how I think about things today. In more recent years we cut down on the number of gifts, and there haven’t been any items that needed a chainsaw to get out of the packaging, but the Christmas morning time with Wayne and the kids was my favorite part of the holiday.

I was sad when we moved three and a half years ago from the home where we had lived for 33 years and raised our family. I knew Christmas would never be the same. Since then covid happened and the kids are on their own living in other states. I have been able to move on from expecting a particular Christmas experience. I have learned to be flexible and am happy to be with whoever is available. My favorite part is still the quiet time, which might not be in my own house.

The following photo of my daughter and my dad from December 2015 is an image reflecting my perfect Christmas Day.

Happy Holidays to all and wishes for a peaceful day and peaceful 2023.