Changing Traditions
So I never realized how important it was to me until today.
You see the old family tradition was that after Thanksgiving, the next day, Black Friday, we would decorate the house for Christmas.
Christmas is my Mom's favorite holiday and she makes a big to do with a huge amount of decorations. We all work hard but by the end the house is very festive and ready for the holiday. Its a lot of work and it can be hard but its great to get it done and we listen to old records and talk and chat as we do it.
We put up the tree this year but my Mom had been told by my Brother that his girlfriend wanted to decorate the house. As we are living in her house but she has moved to Seattle my Mom felt this was overall fair. So my mom decorated her house with my Dad and we put up the tree (we use artificial trees in our family due to an allergy to pine needles that tends to hit a lot of members).
Mom and Dad left Sunday. It was an amazingly nice visit with them. We had this great time talking and cooking and just clearing the air of bad things and making some good memories in our comfortable house. I'll admit I was sad to see them go.
Then today I find out that my Brother lied about his girlfriend she really isn't that into Christmas decorations and never cared that much. My brother just said it because he hated doing all that work on Black Friday.
So now we have all these boxes of decorations that I want up and the usual four to five person job has essentially been left to me. Brother has no interest in decorating and his girlfriend is tepid about it. I want the decorations up so I suppose I have to do the work to get it done.
At the same time I'm just sad doing the decorations by myself just reminds me of a lot of good years with my parents. A lot of these are ornaments that are attached to those memories too. The entire thing is just making me sad as I try to do it and i don't want to be sad doing something that is fun but I miss my parents being around. We're a close family. So now I don't know what to think and I know I dont have the good decorator eye my mom has so i worry nothing looks good and the living room is a mess of boxes.
Maybe I should just take the dog for a walk and come back to this...
You see the old family tradition was that after Thanksgiving, the next day, Black Friday, we would decorate the house for Christmas.
Christmas is my Mom's favorite holiday and she makes a big to do with a huge amount of decorations. We all work hard but by the end the house is very festive and ready for the holiday. Its a lot of work and it can be hard but its great to get it done and we listen to old records and talk and chat as we do it.
We put up the tree this year but my Mom had been told by my Brother that his girlfriend wanted to decorate the house. As we are living in her house but she has moved to Seattle my Mom felt this was overall fair. So my mom decorated her house with my Dad and we put up the tree (we use artificial trees in our family due to an allergy to pine needles that tends to hit a lot of members).
Mom and Dad left Sunday. It was an amazingly nice visit with them. We had this great time talking and cooking and just clearing the air of bad things and making some good memories in our comfortable house. I'll admit I was sad to see them go.
Then today I find out that my Brother lied about his girlfriend she really isn't that into Christmas decorations and never cared that much. My brother just said it because he hated doing all that work on Black Friday.
So now we have all these boxes of decorations that I want up and the usual four to five person job has essentially been left to me. Brother has no interest in decorating and his girlfriend is tepid about it. I want the decorations up so I suppose I have to do the work to get it done.
At the same time I'm just sad doing the decorations by myself just reminds me of a lot of good years with my parents. A lot of these are ornaments that are attached to those memories too. The entire thing is just making me sad as I try to do it and i don't want to be sad doing something that is fun but I miss my parents being around. We're a close family. So now I don't know what to think and I know I dont have the good decorator eye my mom has so i worry nothing looks good and the living room is a mess of boxes.
Maybe I should just take the dog for a walk and come back to this...