holidays are coming up. I get very nostalgic, and it's the most comfortable time of year for me (aside from being freezing cold half the time). I look forward to spending time with my family, putting up the Christmas tree with my husband, and all the other typical things that come with this season.I'm also happy that this will be my first Christmas season outside of retail since I was in high school. I've never gotten to experience that normalcy, so I'm really looking forward to it. Those of you who have worked in retail during the holidays know how stressful that is. If you haven't, then you don't have any clue what true hell is.
Normally, my family goes over to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter, but she's going to be having knee surgery in a couple weeks, so we'll be having to go somewhere else. Hopefully, my parents are still planning on doing something for Thanksgiving, so we'll most likely head over there. However, I still want to attempt something I've never done before: fix a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm trying to get better about doing general "wife stuff" by cooking/cleaning more. I've got the cleaning handled, but the cooking needs some work. I think I need to start getting this little bit down because eventually we'll be the ones having people over for Thanksgiving, and if I don't have this mastered by that time, I'll be in trouble. Wish me luck on that one.
What I'm most looking forward to is setting up the Christmas tree again. It had been so long since I'd seen it up before I'd gotten married. Last year was our first year with our own tree (courtesy of my parents donating their old one to us). Growing up we celebrated Christmas and Channukah until I was about 10, and then it was narrowed down to solely the latter. It was hard to adjust to when every other kid in school celebrated Christmas, and they had no interest in or respect for other religious holidays. To them, my sister and I were outcasts. There's no such thing as an open-minded 10-year-old in regards to religious tolerance. For quite a while I resented Judaism as a whole, but as I've grown and matured, I've gotten over that. Even though I don't personally follow it, I have a respect for it that I never had as a young child/teenager.
When my husband and I put up the tree last year, every time I looked at, I was reminded of all the times I would come home from school and turn the Christmas lights on and pop in a Christmas cassette to complete the mood; the numerous times I'd watch A Christmas Story the weeks leading up to the day (and I still do); and--most vividly--all the Christmas Eve nights my sister and I would be awake for in anticipation of the morning. We shared a room at the time, and we would try to find ways to sneak downstairs to see what Santa had brought us.
I recall one year getting caught by our parents twice (the creaky floors gave us away), so my dad shut the door at the top of the stairs and put an end table in front of it. It was about 3:00 in the morning, and our parents didn't get up until after 9:00, so for two, anxious kids that was an incredibly long wait.
It's memories like that that really make me happy when Christmas time does come around. Even though it's only the beginning of November, I still feel "in the spirit," if you will. Maybe I'm strange, but I'm starting to get into the mood of watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music. Even though I don't want the snow to come, on some strange level I do enjoy it for the last two months of the year. It adds a nice touch. We're starting to light the apple cinnamon candles and get out the fleece blankets in preparation.
It's almost time, and I'm excited. Is that strange?
That may be, but getting an extra hour of sleep this weekend is definitely not.
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