To each his own Christmas

During my freshman year of high school, my parents had the idea for us to forego the usual Christmas with the family to celebrate the holiday with some family friends in Florida. It sounded like a fun wrinkle on the holidays, not least because we could enjoy warm sun instead of snow on Christmas Day, something we'd never really experienced before. For the first few days in Florida, we had a good time, but all this changed once Christmas morning rolled around. What my parents hadn't taken into account was how much more extravagant their friends' idea of Christmas was than theirs. At our house, we always gave gifts, but this was usually limited to five or six per person. So when I awoke and saw the wall of presents that greeted the children who lived there, I knew this was a whole different ballgame. So after me and my family finished with our gifts, we politely sat and watched everyone else open theirs- for nearly two hours. Frankly, I was pretty miserable. I was old enough to understand that my parents didn't love me less than their parents loved their kids simply because I received less presents, but I felt extremely uncomfortable, like I was intruding on someone else's holiday. At that point I made the fairly conclusive discovery that everyone Christmas is different. It was around that same time, I think, that my parents decided to henceforth go back to celebrating Christmas in snowy Ohio.

Out of the entire year, the holidays are the time that's most bound to family tradition. So much goes on in our lives that we can't control that it's a comfort to be able to gather as a family and experience the holidays in pretty much the same way we have in years past. We bust out the old recipes, cue up the Christmas albums, and hang the same ornaments on the tree that we've always hung, plus the new ones we received last year. There's something comforting in that consistency, the knowledge that this Christmas is going to be the same as last Christmas, and that next Christmas will be the same as well. This also goes for Thanksgiving, as I learned the hard way the year I decided to bring some of my homemade applesauce to Thanksgiving dinner. Most of the family eyeballed my unfamiliar contribution quizzically, like I somehow willfully decided to mess with something that didn't need fixed, and I ended up taking most of it home with me. I haven't brought it since.

But no breaking of Christmas tradition was quite as drastic as when I wasn't able to come home for the holidays. For several years, I worked at a movie theatre that was open 365 days a year, and all staff members had the option of taking off either Thanksgiving or Christmas. In my family, Christmas has always been spread out over a number of days while Thanksgiving is one day only, so I decided to work on Christmas. But while the theatre needed the help, and they paid time and a half and paid us for working Christmas, something just felt wrong about not spending the holidays with my family. To comfort myself, I would always take in a movie, but doing this just served to underline that I was by myself on this most family-oriented of days. If nothing else, this has given me a greater appreciation for the holidays, especially my family's one-of-a-kind version of it.

Happy holidays to all of you, and to your families.