Last
Christmas, I knew there would be changes in the coming year. My daughter and
granddaughters had moved out of the house we shared to her fiancés' house in
Georgia. That resulted in my moving to a smaller condo. I had to sell many of
my belongings and Christmas decorations at a moving sale, including my
gorgeous, artificial Christmas tree. I let go of things right and left, not
realizing the inevitable repercussions that would follow when Christmas time
rolled around this year. Little did I realized how steeped I was in holiday
traditions, until the thought of decorating a very small space perplexed me to
the point that I began dreading Christmas altogether.
The first
problems were that without the grandchildren being here and the probability
of my not having any company during the holidays, gave way to a deep feeling of
sadness which turned into my thinking, what
was the point of even decorating at all? Then, having sold my Christmas
tree due to lack of storage, I didn't even have a tree to decorate! What
Christmas decorations I did have were packed in the back hall closet under
boxes of other belongings. Too much
effort! I thought, compounding my sadness even more. Meanwhile, I was
seeing all my friend’s Christmas decorations spread out in numerous photo
spreads on Face book and my sadness started escalating into an all out holiday
depression.
I
complained about my feelings of negativity to my pastor one day and he wisely
confronted me on every excuse I came up with for NOT decorating my small space
for Christmas. Finally, he gave a homework assignment: Go home and decorate and
send him pictures when I was done. Now I had little excuses that I could come
up with to argue with him, so I took his assignment to heart.
I went to a
local thrift store and bought a single strand of Christmas multicolored
lights, a small table top prelit tree, a Christmas rug for my front door, and
some artificial poinsettias and greenery. I felt a little glimmer of excitement
as I lugged my treasures home. Then I attacked the hall closet with vigor. No,
I didn't unpack all my decorations, but I discovered a beautiful wreath, a tree
skirt, stockings and some candles. I lit the candles and realized that I could
play Christmas CD's on my DVD player. Wow-imagine that! I hung the stockings from the snack bar,
and the strand of lights on my screened in porch. Then I covered my small patio
table with the tree skirt and placed the small tree in the center. Viola! It
was beginning to look and feel like Christmas. After I wrapped a
few packages while listening to Christmas music, I began to feel the doldrums slightly start to lift.
Flash
forward to Christmas day. A REALLY
different sort of Christmas, if you will. I had the opportunity to spend the
night on Christmas Eve at my daughter and new son in law’s beautiful home in Georgia with
their four daughters. It was fun being there and being awakened at 5:30 am to
unwrap presents! After the chaos had died down and the mess had been cleaned
up, I took a short cat nap. Then came the realization that this was going to be
a really different Christmas day for me. You see, I have always embraced the
tradition of enjoying the proverbial Christmas ham or turkey dinner with ALL
the trimmings- sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, dressing, cranberry sauce,
rolls, and pecan pie. Of course there would also be TONS of Christmas sugar
cookies hand rolled, hand cut and hand frosted. As it turned out, my daughter
had envisioned something different; something quite different indeed.
Early
afternoon, my son in-law asked me if I wanted to go out to the movies with him,
my daughter, and granddaughters. “Sure” I replied, so an hour later we all piled
into their SUV. I didn't pay too much attention while riding through the streets of Savannah until we pulled up in front of a Chinese restaurant. Sure
enough, we were about to experience our own version of “A Christmas Story.”
Remember the classic holiday movie where the family has to eat out on Christmas
day because the dog ate their turkey and the only restaurant open was a Chinese
Restaurant? Well, sort of the same thing except no turkey and no dog, LOL!
After we waddled out of the all you could eat restaurant, we piled back into the
van for yet another adventure. This time we headed to the movie theater to go see Night at the Museum 3. Unfortunately, we ended up arriving way over an hour before
the movie started, so we ended up seeing Into the Woods, a Disney movies
starring Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep. My youngest granddaughter Olivia and I
loved the musical filled film, and also the popcorn and soda. We arrived back
home where everyone scattered off to separate rooms of the house, and I relaxed
on the couch where I enjoyed several Christmas movies on Netflix.
I learned
several things this Christmas season. 1. Don’t sweat the small stuff. In the
grand scheme of things, even though this Christmas lacked some of the more
traditional elements of holidays past, it still turned out to be fun and a lot
less stressful to boot! 2. Learn to embrace the new and let go of the past. I
admit that is still a hard one for me, but I am working on it. And finally
#3. Despite it being a really different
kind of Christmas, the most important things were still there; family and good
health and those are the things that really
matter in the end.
So
what about you? Did any of you experience a different kind of Christmas too?
After talking to several of my friends I learned that they too had gone to see
“Into The Woods” and one of them had even had Chinese on Christmas as well! Who
would have thought? LOL!!
