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| Christmas |
Two holidays down and one more to go. New Years Day is the easiest of them all in my opinion. Though the other two are no big deal to me anymore. Funny about that. Holidays always caused me more stress than anything else through out the whole year. I can pinpoint it starting the first year I was with my first husband. He was Jewish and having never grown up with Christmas as part of his life he embraced all the holiday routines. Decorations, holiday foods, meals, Christmas parties and the gifts! Oh yes, he loved the buying of the gifts more than anything else. He would buy gifts for everyone. Even his business clients. My family would come to my house on Christmas Day and it looked like a dream. In reality it was not for me. Buying presents for others stressed me out. Not from the financial aspect but the actual going to the crowded stores and finding something that person would like. I had no trouble buying for my son but everyone else presented a problem to me. When my mother's health became bad she would mail me a check and tell me to buy everyone presents from her and my father. Oh boy, just what I wanted to do!
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| Surprising Mom with a colored television! |
Truthfully the best Christmases I remember were the ones before I grew up. Or the time my parents and brother came to my apartment for Christmas Eve. After my parents left to drive home my brother and my son and I went in his car to my parents' house to beat them there. When they arrived home, we were quietly sitting in their house in the dark. My mother turned on the lights and there we were. Also there was a big color television sitting there in place of their small black and white one! My brother had found it for sale used at a good price and we got it for their Christmas present. They loved it.! On the drive there my brother kept pointing to the sky and saying he saw Santa in his sleight. My son was soon saying he saw them too. He was so excited. It was one of my fondest memories.
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| My brother, Mickey in his wild west show in Harpursville, NY |
When we were children our Christmas gifts were usually a few toys, a book or two and some clothing. Usually pajamas. We always got the same number of presents. Yet almost every year, I would get the biggest present because it was doll and one year a doll house. My brother would just grab that big one and open it himself before my parents could stop him. Every year I got a new doll. My brother who is two and half years older than me always got things related to cowboys, guns and race cars. He is still into cowboys and guns to this day. He builds black powder guns and makes buckskin clothing for himself. He has a wild west show with a group of others who put on shows at a variety of places during the summer and fall. So those interests have always stayed with him. I will add that he is a very unique brother and has always been so (even though he always opened my dolls!).
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| Decorated my door with mostly Christmas Cards I received. |
My Christmas has changed in the last few years to being a really quiet day and not doing much of anything except decorating my door and giving out cards to the people who live in my building. I am quite happy with it this way because it not a stressful time for me now. No spending money on presents that nobody wants. Remember those gift boxes of talcum powder or bubble bath? Those were the gifts you got when someone had to give you a gift and didn't know what to give you. I can picture them in the store now. I do not know if they still sell stuff like that now or not. I buy myself whatever I want all year long so I don't need to get any presents. Nor do I cook a Christmas meal. This year I had Keto Chow salted caramel ice cream that I added pumpkin spice to. Later in the day I had a large rib-eye steak. Perfect for Christmas Day! No big clean up job. No stress of whether someone liked a present I bought them. My son lives upstairs and he came down a few times but he is not into Christmas either.
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| Rabbit |
The thing about living alone and being alone on a holiday is that it really is no big deal........unless YOU make it a big deal. Fretting about it months in advance causes you to dread the day so much. Becoming depressed because you are alone. It is just a day like any other day. If you have a pet you aren't alone. I know I still have to care for my pet like I do every day. Pets don't know it is Christmas or that you are going to buy them a bunch of presents. But you can if you choose to do so. I think they like it better if you stay home whether you get them presents or not. I buy this little boy so much stuff all the time so he doesn't have to wait for Christmas to get any gifts. In fact, he slept most of the day........
in 1995-97. We went all over the country. Shared this experience making memories that nobody else, but Larry has with me. Like the time we were snowed in at a truck stop with other truckers and travelers in the state of Washington. Or the time we were stuck without loads in Denver for three days, and we hung out with the other company drivers. Or the time we visited Elvis
's house museum, Graceland
in Memphis. Great memories!
, inside jokes and past conversations is what gives you a relationship with anyone. Even if you meet someone for the first time on a a subway or share a table in a busy restaurant and later run into that person............you have a connection. I have reconnected in this last year with my old friends from my schools in Crescent City
and Flagler Beach, Florida
. I share many unique memories with each of these friends. From riding the school bus together, swooning over the Beatles
when they first appeared on the music scene, to hanging out in the hula huts along the pier on Flagler Beach
or driving the famous Daytona Beach in a car full of friends. It was an instant re-connection as soon as we sent that first "add as a friend" request.
. It is the 30th year of the Lupole
reunion. This year my husband will be videotaping it to preserve these precious memories. The memories of the oldest generation all the way to the newest generation. Memories in the making for sure! So we are planning ways to make this a family reunion remembered by making the videotape into a dvd memento for all.
on purpose. Create those moments and family traditions
that will live on. In my own family, my parents weren't into the holiday traditions so much since both of my parents worked. But when I had my son, I wanted him to have a traditional Christmas
like in books and on television. So I created it. By the time my brother had his children, our family considered my home to be the place everyone went for Christmas dinner
. His kids wouldn't have had a real Christmas if not for me. So I created memories for them all. And my own parents, as they got older, looked forward to Christmas at my house even though they had never done it themselves.