Do you have a quiet Christmas or do a BIG gathering with family and friends planned or are you traveling over the holiday to somewhere special this year? Has they way you celebrate changed over the past few years?
Yet AGAIN there is another COVID and FLU strain this year as well as viral meningitis going around that concerns me a bit. I have several neighbors who went to BIG gatherings for Thanksgiving and now have COVID or the FLU 🙁 so it is still a concern for me as an immunocompromised person.
We’ve always been pretty much homebodies during the holidays. Then again we have always lived fairly close to family so traveling was only day trips or short distances. Personally, I cannot fathom traveling through an airport or train station with BIG crowds even before the pandemic. The one time we did travel over the holidays, we made a BIG trip out of it leaving well before the holiday and going home long after it.
When I was a kid one of my favorite traditions was that we did a BIG family get together with a buffet of food and opening our family presents on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, after my dad passed, much of this tradition fell by the wayside.
Then on Christmas Day we did Christmas morning at our respective homes with “Santa” gifts and just the immediate family. Then we would do a BIG turkey with all the trimmings including my dad’s old fashioned stuffing and giblet gravy with the entire family as well as extended family and friends, which included crazy Aunt Louise and Uncle Herb. At my brother’s request I replicated dad’s stuffing recipe a several years back (Oatnut Sourdough Herb Dressing) and that is now a MUST TRADITION for the Christmas meal no matter what the protein is.
Christmases for us now are MUCH MUCH smaller and our newest tradition in the last several years is watching our favorite traditional Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street as well as Hallmark Christmas movies and dreaming about moving to every small town depicted in them, kind of like Stars Hollow from the Gilmore Girls. We loved that show!
This year again we will be having a quiet Christmas with just the two of us. There are several Christmas events leading up to Christmas we will be participating in though. We are also hoping some friends will be able to join us for New Years, but there are no plans set in stone yet.
So what are your plans this year?