Holiday Preparations

Still a little upset at the economic landscape, but need to focus on the holiday preparations for our little family.

A typical Christmas Celebration involves 2 full days, lots of extended family, scheduling around lots of food, driving - lots of driving in sometimes icky weather, lots of presents with multiple places of unwrapping and very little sleep. This year will be different as we have moved very far away from the large extended family. The in-laws are within an hour, but they are Jewish, making the Christmas Holiday all mine. So the base of operation will be our house, completely eliminating the driving and of course the bad weather conditions were eliminated when we moved to Florida.

The food, will be paired down, but I will still plan on the Christmas Eve meal of fish, the Christmas Day Brunch meal which is our new family tradition and then the Christmas Day meal of Homemade Ravioli. I will be making food for 6-8 instead of 25-50+ in some cases.

The gift giving will also be limited to one unwrap session on Christmas Morning. Usually it was Christmas Eve at the Extended Family, then again at my Grandparents house, then finally sleep around 3-4am, wake up and see what Santa brought and unwrap nuclear family and gifts sent in from friends, then go to my parents for more unwrapping after dinner. 4 times...

So different traditions will be started as we will make due with what we have. I am saddened a little, but happy to know there is no driving and we will get to bed before 3 am! Possibly the boys will appreciate their gifts a touch more, as there is no unwrapping overload???

The preparations have started, the menu, the gift planning and making and sending and selecting. I have been hearing on the morning Talk Show Circuit how the holidays are filled with stress and it makes people unhappy. I can honestly say that I have NEVER been stressed or unhappy to celebrate a holiday. I love them all and look forward to the celebration of family, food and tradition mostly created around a major Spiritual Event. I just love it all. But then again, most of my holidays as a child were built around this idea of comfort in togetherness and it was always made special by my family. Mom had a way to make it festive and important. This is one thing I have tried to recreate so the boys have a sense of anticipation and excitement around special days.

More as the planning progresses....