As a young mom, I was really good at doing Christmas. I budgeted all year for the extra spending. I usually started my gift planning around September, involving a secret, highly-guarded, constantly-updated list of gifts for our kids. It was my job to keep it all balanced so that, when opening presents, no one ran out ahead of the others. Sometimes Husband would spring a last minute gift-idea for one of the kids and I would scramble to provide something comparable for the others so it all remained *even*. Plus there had to be a balance between the inevitable new sweater or socks .... and the fun stuff. No one teaches these skills when you first decide to become a parent and many dads wouldn't have paid attention anyway.
I shopped, decorated the house and tree, played the music, baked the cookies, planned the food, mailed the cards and letters, and wrapped mountains of packages. Christmas was like a giant pageant with me as the director, producer, caterer, and set/costume designer. And I loved it all because those wonderful and priceless childhood memories will always be our gift to our kids.
But that phase of life ends.
And here we are, alone in the desert.
This year the realization hit that if we don't want to spend Christmas alone .... then we can no longer spend Christmas at home. This is because all of our kids now have kids, and we engrained in them years ago, that a kid's Christmas is best at home. So that's where they need to be, with their own tree and their own stuff and their own memory-making traditions. We were the ones who chose to move away. So we are the ones who now must do the traveling.
Side Note: One of the many motivations for building our van was to better enable foisting ourselves upon our adult-children by making our visits easier on everyone. We can park in any of their driveways and sleep in our own bed. (In #Vanlife, this is called "mooch-docking".) It's a win-win for everyone .... assuming you like your relatives.
That said ...... whoever decided to plunk Christmas right down into the dead of winter (instead of .... say .... balmy May or maybe June) wasn't thinking it through, because in our case, in every direction from our home, are mountain passes. And that's where it tends to snow .... a lot ....
Husband poo-poos my concerns. Unlike me, he loves driving in snow. Even better if everyone else would stay out of his way. I must admit, so far we've had no issues driving through said passes. A few concerns a time or two, but nothing scary. He bought new beefy tires for our non-4WD van and on the chance we ever DID get stuck, we'd have plenty of heat, water, food, and all the comforts. I think Husband would actually enjoy getting stuck for a while, just to show the world that we've GOT this. We carry chains and a shovel (to appease me) but have rarely come close to needing either. However, both this year and last, we had to cut our holiday visit a little short to get home ahead of incoming weather. It is our new normal.
But new normals aren't necessarily bad. They're just different. Christmas is easier than it used to be .... even when it snows. And our kids are very welcoming and our grandkids are award-winningly delightful.
Plus I don't need to make a list anymore. Another win .... sort of.
No comments:
Post a Comment