Bob's Thoughts on Christmas Eve 2008

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

Well, this year our house is really quiet and I do not even hear the mouse stirring. It is kind of a different Christmas for us this year; between my health not being what it once was and the weather for the last week and a half we have not gotten ready for Christmas in our “traditional” sense.

This is the first Christmas Eve that I can remember in a very long time where we were not rushing around wrapping presents and then rushing to one of the children’s houses for our "traditional" Christmas Eve "Christmas" dinner and present opening celebration.

It has for many years seemed like everyone was just glad to get it all over with and no one really enjoyed being together and celebrating the "reason for the season". This year for various reasons it did not work out to do it and I am hoping that perhaps we can start a new "tradition”; one that is a lot less chaotic; one where everyone is not rushing to of from several places to one where we can just sit around and enjoy each other and contemplate what a gift we have received and how we are using it.

Hopefully it will be a time that the grandchildren will be able to look back on and remember good times and not being rushed from one place to another just so their parents will have been "good children" and spent time with their parents or other relatives.

The older I get the more I value quality over quantity; I would much rather spend less time as long as it was quality time than spend a lot of time, with no quality. I would rather see my children and grandchildren enjoying themselves because they are having a good time rather than being too exhausted from all the seasonal running around that it is a struggle just to stay awake!

With four children and at least that many in-laws and their families our children have been having to split their time with everyone just so that no one get their feeling hurt or because it has been the family "tradition" to do such and such on such and such a day. There is nothing wrong with "tradition", but sometimes we need to break with "tradition" and start a new "tradition" one that has meaning for us today.

I know as a child we would always go to Christmas Eve service and then come home and open presents. Christmas day we would open our presents from "Santa" and then we would always go to my Mother's parent’s house or her brother's house for Christmas day. That worked well for us and since Kathleen's family did something similar so that is what we did with our family.

I still look back on my Christmases growing up with fond memories and I would like to give that gift to my children and grandchildren. I can still see my parents faces as they watched each of us open our presents from them Christmas Eve and then watch the twinkle in their eyes as they again watched us Christmas morning as we got our "special" presents.

I cannot remember my folks opening any presents, and maybe they did not have any as they always gave us much more than we deserved or than they could afford, but that is what being a parent is all about…making those sacrifices for ones children.

We did not live close enough to my parents or any of my relatives to celebrate Christmas with them and so our children were not pulled by having to visit several relatives and we could enjoy Christmas as a family.

Now with four married children and all but Chucky having their families in the area Christmas has become much more complicated, at least for our children as their spouses and their families all had their own "traditions" that they wished to continue; not that any of that is good or bad it is just facts.

Over the last few years as I have watched the grandchildren open, their presents, it has become somewhat of a, "okay let's get this over with" kind of feeling. They would open presents and not know who gave it to them, then want their next present and the adults would kind of open their presents and with one eye try and keep track of who had given what to their children.

Then came the clean up time and half the time some of the small pieces would get mixed in with the wrapping paper and we would have to go through it to find everything.

Then there was the home where we celebrated, with all the grandchildren opening up presents and everyone eating, whose ever home it was seemed to get trashed and everyone was always too tired or had to rush off to the next celebration to help clean up and get everything back in order.

I would like to suggest putting some sanity back into Christmas and make it less complicated on everyone. I do not have a plan that I think we need to adhere to but I think we as a family can come up with something much better than what we have been doing. I would like to make Christmas memorable not only for us, but our children and grandchildren as well.

This year looks like a good time to start as the weather and several other things have made it impossible to have our "traditional" Christmas Eve celebration.

With all the birthdays and Thanksgiving, November and December are really hectic months and it is easy to make Christmas, just another "birthday" kind of celebration, but it is really much more and I for one would like to give it a little more special place in our lives and in our hearts.

Let's see what we can come up with that will allow us to celebrate the "reason for the season" and do it at a time when we are not exhausted from a dozen other birthday/Christmas parties, Christmas programs and running around doing the "traditional" Christmas things.

I do not want to be a Scrooge and ruin everyone’s Christmas, I just want to help you enjoy your future Christmases more. With that said, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!