Have you a Christmas routine? Things that you always have to do to make it feel like it is the festive season? Are these things done merrily or with a sense of dread? If you are a newbie to the family. do other people's Christmases just not seem right?
Today, I was decorating and making good the dining room, ready for Christmas day lunch. Aardvark and Rhino were tottering about, dancing to the stereo and I got to thinking about my grandparents.
We always put the decorations up on Christmas Eve, went to Kings for the service at 3pm, returned home after 'official duties' - more about that another time perhaps, had a meal, and enjoyed each others company for the evening. We always did this because we made the effort to be together and it really used to feel that Christmas had started.
They were a very sociable pair my Grandparents and I spent a great deal of my childhood with them, my Grandad died in 1988 and as time went on, I spent lots of time with my Nan until she died in 2007. All of a sudden I was overcome with emotion, and out of nowhere tears were flowing at a rapid rate. I felt very alone and desolate for some reason and it took me all afternoon to realise why.
Christmas is never going to be the same as it was for me when they were both alive and no matter how much I try, I will never recreate it. I now have a Christmas which is a heady mix of Northerness, plus the 'posh southern way' - The Hubstacles words, not mine!
I realised that the Christmases now, will be the memories that Aardvark and Rhino will have, hold, cherish and take in to adulthood with them - and perhaps even try to recreate themselves.
It is no good trying to get something back that can never be got, its all about creating something new. Sure, parts are not going to be to everyone's taste (I am sure my brother-in-law cringed the first time we got the karaoke machine out!), but its all about allowing yourself to enjoy other people's happiness.
So, embrace the new, cherish the old - add elements of 'your Christmas' to the future ones and create something that will be memories to last a lifetime.
My Christmas memories make me happy - I hope yours can too. x
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