christmas meanderings

Christmas time is here again. It seems to come faster every year. It's the first Christmas I won't be home with my family - I will in fact be all alone Christmas morning! I am slightly depressed about that, but what can ya do? It's got me thinking about all the different traditions and how we usually spend Christmas day at home. It's got me appreciating the little things. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the stockings. Not so much for anything that was put in them, but just for the fun of opening them up Christmas morning, sitting in the livingroom with the little ones, and the older ones, and eating candy before breakfast. lol. We'd sleep under the Christmas tree and Destiny and Whitney would be up early, so that what I'd wake up to - them opening their stockings, or watching veggies tales or early morning cartoons. Then we'd have a leisurely breakfast with the whole family - omllettes and vegetarian breakfast sausages and hashbrowns, or something else special and different. After breakfast, when the dishes were all done and the food put away, we'd open gifts. In my family we always draw names, since there's so many of us. So someone would start and give their gift, then the person they had would open the gift, then give the gift they got for the name they had. Christmas was never extravagant for us, but it was a special time to spend with the whole family. We'd sit around and play card games or chat or watch a movie all together. That's what Christmas is to me. Christmas Eve we'd always go out to my grandparents' for supper and visit with them for a while. And there would be lots of Christmas goodies. Fudge, cookies, fruit balls, maybe fruit cake. And we always have a big family dinner with my dad's side of the family too. But this year, I am going to miss all of that.

I won't be completely alone all Christmas. I'll be spending a bit of time with Jon and the kids this afternoon, then going to my place for the evening - might hang out with a couple of friends tonight, as I don't really want to sit at home by myself for Christmas eve. Then tomorrow I'll probably be having Christmas dinner with Jon. But it's the waking up on Christmas morning alone that I'm depressed about. It certainly won't feel like Christmas this year! But I guess it could be worse. I do have gifts to open, and I did have people to buy gifts for as well. It's just the little things I'm missing - but those are the ones that are felt the most...