I’m back

I guess I can’t really say I’m back since I didn’t go anywhere.   I’ve barely left the house.  But things are caught up here, house is decorated for Christmas and all is well in my little world. 

I’ll confess, I was escaping, getting away from it all, and doing some thinking.  I seem to reflect back a lot this time of year every year, thinking of Christmases past, dreaming of Christmases future. 

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time, but it isn’t for everyone.  I realized that a long time ago.  My early Christmases were not always happy, but I don’t remember those.  I chose to remember just the happy ones.  And what made them happy usually had nothing to do with Christmas itself, which I probably can never explain to anyone. 

The first year we were in the military we were stationed in San Antonio Texas.  I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, John too.  We had cold Christmases.  Our first two married Christmases were white, we were living in New Hampshire and it’s kind of guaranteed to have a white Christmas up there.  San Antonio. Not.  That was depressing.

Our first two married Christmases were spent with family.  His was a huge one so all of his Christmases had been huge ones.  Not so much with my family, but it was always a time for children and family.  We were in San Antonio, we didn’t have any children and we didn’t have any family. 

I was soooooo depressed on Christmas day, miserable even.  I cried when we talked to family on the phone.  When my father called he asked what was wrong, and I told him, Christmas isn’t the same without family.  He said he’d come visit us early in the year and we could celebrate Christmas then….

And we did… we left up our Christmas tree and all the decorations.  I bought fun little gifts when I saw them on sale and wrapped them and stuck them under the tree.  For two months people would look at us strangely when they came to visit and found our tree up.. we had to explain it a lot. 

Sometime mid-February my Dad came to visit us and we celebrated Christmas.  We had turkey and all the fixings (he cooked) and it was just like Christmas.  Sure it was 80 degrees outside, but inside it was Christmas.