Remember when you were younger and looked forward to the holidays. Once it hit Thanksgiving, you knew presents and a week off from school were around the corner. Your parents got the tree and you helped decorate it, they brought home shopping bags full of gifts and hid them (usually poorly, because we always managed to find them) you made cookies for Santa and they helped you write the letter. We helped string up the lights and wrap the presents and it was this magical time during the year. But as you get older, and tied up with work and life and doing your own present shopping, that time becomes just another set of weeks in the year. It's not as special anymore. And I realized this week that we had our parents taking care of all the details. Now as adults, we have to make these decisions and traditions on our own. It sucks.
I want to be able to kick back and watch Christmas movies and daydream during class about what I'm getting for Christmas. I can't do that anymore. And it flies by so quickly. The holidays felt like forever when I was a kid. With this startling acknowledgement that I'm not a child anymore, came the realization that it's up to me to carry on the traditions and do all these things now. If I don't do it now, there's a good chance my future children won't know what Christmas is at all since I'll be so used to not partaking and facilitating all this holiday stuff. And as exhausting as it's going to be to keep up with all these things, I hope I help create similar holiday memories for my future kids as I have such as:
- sneaking into the closet and looking at all the presents before they're wrapped
- trying to peek under the door to see the presents we didn't find as my mother wrapped them
- using a knife to cut the tape to look at the wrapped presents and then resealing them
- stealing all my brothers presents at 6am on Christmas day and replacing them with a pile of coal (my brother is STILL in therapy for that one)
- catching "Santa" in the act at 5 years old
Guess I managed to find another downside of growing up....time killed Christmas. You heard it here first, kids.
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