Merry Christmas everyone! I seriously can’t believe that it’s already Christmas, can you?  

When Carolyn first asked me to participate in her week long series of Christmas Memories, I started to think of my past Christmases and I realized something – it was just another day for me. Growing up, it was a time of year where it meant lots of food and gatherings with the family. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were exhausting as we traveled to one grandparents and then another, all while mixing in opening gifts and eating lots of food. I know it’s suppose to be a time when families get together, but my family always got together. If we didn’t have dinner together at least three times a month (and I mean the whole family – aunts, uncles, grandparents, the works) then my grandparents became upset. And you don’t upset them because you won’t hear the end of it.  So Christmas was always just another family gathering with an added bonus of leaving with something (but not always something I wanted).

Then I met my husband. To say that my husband’s family is the polar opposite of mine is an understatement. His family got together a guarantee of two times a year. Other than that, there had to be something monumental going on in order to get everyone together. It was different from the way I grew up, but there was something there. It wasn’t just another day because they didn’t see each other all the time, but you could still tell they were close. It also ensured that there was some fun and wacky antics going on (i.e the running joke of who was going to ruin Christmas this year). It definitely made the gatherings interesting, and weirdly, I have more memories of my Christmases with them than I do with my own family. Since there were fewer of them, my memories don’t always run together.

Four years ago, my Christmas memories changed again. It was the first time Jesse and I were in our own home, all day, for Christmas. We didn’t have to travel and nothing was expected of us. What changed you ask? We put our foot down.  Our two person family became three and we didn’t want to hurry our Christmas with our son (the Monkey) to drive 2 hours to be somewhere. So we didn’t. It was probably the first Christmas where I was excited to wake up in the morning. It was the Monkey’s first Christmas and we went all out- we even got a tree. Up until this point, we were never home for Christmas, so we never decorated. We never needed a tree. It was just another day of traveling to see the family; but we weren’t doing it that year.  

This year, my Christmas memories will be changing again. This will be Psy’s second Christmas, but it will be the first time where he actually gets what is going on. He was only four months old last year, so he really didn’t get into the concept of Christmas. *grin* So instead of just the Monkey jumping up and day, eagerly waiting to open gifts, we’ll have two kids running for the tree.

Plus, the Monkey is at that age where he is asking to decorate and decorate early. He would have been happy to put the tree up Thanksgiving weekend, but I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to decorate the way he wants. When it was just Jesse and I, the only decoration we had was a naked prelit tree and that was because my grandparents gave it to us. I don’t like to decorate and that’s because of one Christmas memory that is still vivid in my brain. My mother literally has a half dozen huge cardboard boxes full of decorations and it was an all weekend affair to decorate the house. There was one Christmas where I actually volunteered to do laundry just so I wouldn’t have to decorate. It was just too much and not a lot of fun. However, the Monkey is loving all the decorations and it’s hard not to get excited.  

With that thought in mind, I need to start planning tomorrow morning. I told the Monkey we could decorate the house and get the tree out. I have a feeling I don’t quite know what I’m getting myself into, but he’s excited and that’s all that matters.