My friend and I were discussing how much we miss Christmas when our kids were little. Neither of us said anything about missing Christmas from when we were kids. I noticed that later. I know that every year with the kids was altogether hectic (some years more than others), joyful, chaotic, and special. It wasn't about the kids getting gifts as much as it was the simple traditions carried out every year. Nothing warms the heart more than watching the joy on a child's face when they see the tree for the first time after Santa has drop his payload. The wide eyes, the "Oh Boy!" coming out of your kids mouths. Man I could die happy remembering times like that. Every year the kids tried to wake me up earlier and earlier. Of course when their dad and I were together he REFUSED to be awoken any earlier than 7 am and then he would insist on taking an hour long shower before the kids could go and unwraps their gifts. If I recall correctly eventually I was able to put a kibosh on that idea. I don't remember how old they were before that happened. I remember one year letting my daughter open one gift on her birthday while her daddy was in the bath and he went ballistic, so that never happened again, he was so furious. To me I thought it was reasonable. She had already waited ALL DAY for her dad to get home from work and then he insisted on taking a bath (we were living overseas and had only a bathtub) first. No fair! So I let our daughter open one gift from her grandparents, I thought she earned the right. It was her 2nd birthday and she was excited. Christmas morning had a similar edict.
Sorry, I digress! Anyway, every year I made a coffee cake and special Christmas cookies that I usually only made at Christmas and maybe one other time during the year. So in the morning, the kids' father and I would eat coffee cake in between opening gifts. The kids always ate the cake AFTER presents! Lol. Just watching the joy on their faces and the excitement. It is something that is forever imprinted on my brain. One of the kids would always be in charge of getting the gifts for each person, another would pick up the wrapping paper. The other two? Well at first they were too young for those tasks, later they took over for the older ones who were by now tired of that routine. Lol.
Later, as the kids were, playing with toys or calling friends or family, I would start making the special rolls that took hours to make in between phone calls.The smells were always wonderful. WE usually ate fairly early and a lot! I always made a rump roast for the main entree, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, special cloverleaf yeast rolls, and whatever vegetable I could get away with....with a chocolate cream pie for dessert.
Of course those were the years that we didn't live around family. When we lived around family, it was twice the chaos and 3 times the hassle. Christmas eve was spent at the paternal grandparents house with ALL of the family. Christmas day we spent at our house, then later to brother and sister in laws house where we always had Christmas dinner because they had the biggest and fanciest house. Sometimes we spent an hour or two at my parents house. Although my dad thought that was stupid since we had small children...so they usually came to us. Thank you very much! I appreciated that more than anything. My dad was cool like that! Growing up as an only child made these big Christmases foreign to me. But I was glad that my own children got to be surrounded by lots of family.
These days we have no contact with their dad or his family. My oldest daughter is the only one who has contact with her dad. The grandparents are deceased on both sides, their paternal grandmother only passed this year. We actually had a lot of contact with her. But with her death all contact with that part of the family has ceased. I have no family other than my children. I have distant relatives, but we don't know each other. I don't have any contact at all with my dad's family and they were the ones I was closest to growing up. They were a huge family but when my grandma died everyone kinda had minimal contact with each other. Most of them live in the same area but never see each other or rarely if they do at all. I haven't had any contact with them in about 8 years. They are lost to me, I don't even know if they are all alive. My mom's family? Well all of them are gone. I have a few cousins and we kept in contact after our last uncle died for a little bit, but that has dwindled to nothing really. I have contact with one cousin on Facebook and that is it. It is understandable, we didn't know each other growing up. They lived on the other side of the country. My mom and I only visited once. Two of my cousins and their mom visited us once and that was it.
I think that one thing that I have noticed is when the matriarch dies, it seems that the most families drift apart. I'm sure it is not for everyone. Every family is different, but I have noticed that it is usually the moms who try so hard to keep in contact with the kids and apprise them of what the others are doing. When that link is broken, many families are so busy with their own families that they neglect the relationships they have with their siblings, nieces, and nephews. Having had no siblings I am completely alone and cannot understand how this can happen in a family. I think many times the responsibility falls to the oldest child and he or she will try to keep the links alive. I think that will probably happen when I pass away. My kids will probably drift as well. Maybe it is our society that makes it easy to do....I don't know. I really want my kids to stay close but I notice that they don't even have a lot of contact right now and they live in the same town. They love each other and would be there if they were needed, I know that...I kinda have two sets of kids, the older two are separated from the younger two by many years. My youngest daughter told me that she doesn't really know what to say to the older two. She said she feels like she doesn't really know them and they really don't have anything in common. It is really sad to me. I don't know that there is anything I can do about it these days. I think that is one of the reasons why I hate living in this little apartment. When I had a big house we all had Christmas dinner together almost every year and the kids and I had a routine, even when there were boyfriends or girlfriends there. We hung out, talked, ate dinner, drank wine and then played games. It was fun, we laughed a lot. I miss that so much. The first year I was at THAT particular house was the first year I went totally crazy with decorating at Christmas. I had a formal living room with a big bay window where I put the tree and we had a fireplace that I decorated with garland and lights and stockings. I went insane with the decorations. Every end table had a little tree or some other decoration. For Christmas dinner I'd use the special Christmas tablecloths and with coordinating Christmas napkins and silver and gold napkin rings. I'd use the formal china and silver for the table. The centerpieces always included lit candles. I loved Christmas. What happened? I think the kids growing up, the scattering of my life as well as the fast pace of life in general has contributed to the loss of what was once so dearly loved.
I miss those times gone by. I miss the feelings, the emotions, the love, and the joy. Once lost, it is hard to regain.
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