Taking a rain-check on Christmas…

 

Toss some lights on it, a (crooked) star, one ornament, and we’re good to go!

C.E. Grundler

While everyone around me is coming down from the pre-holiday frenzy that is Christmas, here in my personal corner of N.J., it’s still a few days off.

Yes, I’ve checked the calendar. I know it’s currently December 26th. But here in my house, we’ve taken a vote and the consensus was, for sanity’s sake, we’ll all wait till Saturday.

That’s not to say we didn’t celebrate yesterday. We did. But the big planned meals, the guests, the gifts, they’re all in holding pattern. It’s just that there was too much to do, too little time, too many people with too many obligations between the 24th and 25th. Half the gifts weren’t even wrapped yet, and the tree — well, the tree had been standing bare since it came in two weeks ago, still waiting for someone to stand still long enough to decorate it. And somewhere along the way we’d lost sight of what we were celebrating, and why. So ultimately we as a family agreed that all involved would be far more relaxed if we simply held off a few more days.

As a result, yesterday’s ‘not-Christmas’ was delightfully pleasant, merry, and best of all, 100% stress-free. There was no pressure to be three different places at once. No worries over gifts, no mess of wrapping paper. No racing in and out of the kitchen, preparing meals. Yesterday was all about simply enjoying the holiday with family, eating some take-out from Dragon House, and taking a few minutes to actually decorate the tree — more  or less, at least. Two strings of lights, a star on top, and a lone ornament — it looks quite lovely as is. (Between now and Saturday, I may throw a few more decorations on. Then again, I might not.) And wonder of wonders, Christmas still came. It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. It even arrived without the Roast Beast. And truth be told, it was the best Christmas any of us can remember in years.

I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere, and we’ve all agreed that from this point forward, we have a new holiday tradition in our family.

 

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