The Holidays

I've never been big on holidays, at least the commercial side. When I was young Thanksgiving and Christmas were great, all the presents, good food and decorations. We were a small lot, just the four of us and grandparents, if mom was not mad at them that year. What was missing? A sense of family. Mom had to keep up with the "Jones" so we had way too many gifts, and no outward signs of love and affection. It was all show no go all year around.

When I married into a huge family, at 21, I thought wow I'm finally going to get real holidays with a loving family. Well I learned a huge family is not necessarily a loving family but it was a fun time. When I divorced I could not imagine splitting up holidays with my ex or making them choose between parents. It made perfect sense to give the holidays to the ex because he had the family. I think I made a mistake on that decision because I could have made more of an effort to make a fun holiday for three. I spent holidays at other people's families houses and that made me sad and other times I'd stay home which was easier.

Now the kids have their own little families and I have Dave. We love to decorate or rather Dave decorates, I supervise! We both exchange gifts which is really neat after years of being single. Cooking is a problem though because I can't and he won't. We usually travel and visit his family, that he sees maybe twice a year.

I think it's old bad feelings that make me cringe at holiday commercials, the stores decorating way too early, getting gifts from people you did not buy for and figuring out how much to spend on who. Ok, I admit it, I don't like holidays! There I've said it! I've actually never said that out loud, it's very freeing. Maybe we can donate all the money we would have spent on gifts to charity, decorate and help feed the homeless. I tried that one year and I loved it but my kids were ticked! Oh well, I'll think of something this year.