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Ruminations on Christmas and Christmas’ Past — No Comments

  1. I can feel that nostalgia and you're right, it is hard to describe the feeling Christmas brings with it.

    Being on the opposite side of the world, there is absolutely no snow associated with Christmas here in Oz.

    We still eat all the traditional foods consumed in the northern hemisphere, even on a sweltering hot day.

    Thanks for evoking some of my own childhood memories. 🙂

  2. I use that ending quote all the time. It's as bittersweet as your piece because I'm sad by mankind's unchanging ways and yet find comfort in it at the same time. The species continues, for better or worse. o_O Wow! Look at me ramble. That had nothing to do with what you wrote. I enjoyed the image of you playing video games by the glow of Christmas lights. 🙂 Thank you for sharing.

  3. I agree about the nostalgia. It's a strange holiday, because each year we seem to get more focused on the money side of it: how will shoppers behave, will the economy recover, etc. Instead, my family tries to keep the focus here, on the home and each other. It's not the same as when I was a child, but it works for us. ~hugs~

  4. Your post made me think a lot about our family traditions now compared to what they were as a child. I was strongly attached to the traditions themselves – especially the entire family getting together Christmas Eve.

    I spent a long time really focused on the idea that everything had to be the way it was, but that just doesn't work anymore. It took a lot of growing pains to get to the point where I could accept that things just weren't ever going to be exactly the same, and be happy with what we had.

    We have a tree party now, in part because I love having company while I decorate and in part because I'm the only one of my immediate family that puts up a tree now.

    I have an aunt and uncle, and cousins who live in Washington and do their own thing on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we arrange a get together with the whole family the weekend before or after Christmas.

    We always have Christmas Eve dinner at my house, and Christmas breakfast at my mom's before we go to our annual Christmas movie (about the only movie my mom will see in a theater all year).

    It isn't he same as it was when I was a kid. It can't be. I feel very lucky, though, that the *feel* of it all is very much the same. I wake up early now because I need to cook or clean rather than because I get to open presents, but that's just details. Sitting around the table or around the Christmas tree with my family – that will always be the best part of the year.