this weekend, we celebrated christmas with my family + mimi, since she’ll be at my aunt’s house in tucson over christmas and we’ll be up in hot springs with my dad’s side. it surprises people that we often celebrate the holidays [christmas, thanksgiving, birthdays, etc.] on different days – sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes twice or three times. a lot of people seem to think that it’s sad to not be able to celebrate the holiday on its actual day, like it takes the fun out of it or something. but when your family is scattered across 6 or 7 states and your pilot dad sometimes has to fly on christmas, you learn that it’s not about the actual date on the calendar that makes a holiday – it’s about getting the family together, spending time with each other, and being festive. we never “skipped” christmas – we’d pick another day to celebrate christmas that worked for our schedules, and that was christmas. [still happens to this day!] as kids, santa always found us with no problem no matter where we were or what day it was, and we knew he would special-deliver some presents to us and fill our stockings. :) we never worried about it – we were used to it.
as my brother and i get older and start thinking about adding spouses to the family someday [nooooo, i don’t have a significant other, but OF COURSE i’ve thought about it…you know me!] ;), i think it’s a really good thing that we’ve grown up being so flexible about holidays. when you add another person to the mix, it can be difficult to balance seeing both families and spending time with them at the holidays [even when they live in the same city], and i hear from a lot of my married and soon-to-be married friends that it’s something they’ve really had to try to figure out and maybe are still trying to figure out. i understand the difficulty of it all and know that eventually when i get married, i’ll have to deal with the same thing, but i hope i can keep the same mindset that my family has helped cultivate over the years and make it part of my own future family’s mindset – that it’s not about the dates of the holidays themselves, but instead about family and creating your own festivities when you’re able to. it’s not worth getting your panties in a bunch over things you can’t control or dates that really don’t matter in the whole scheme of things, even though it may seem like a big deal at the time.
and i’m totally rambling now, but we had such a wonderful christmas together on saturday, and then i got home yesterday afternoon feeling oh so good. i had gotten gifts i LOVE from my family members and we had such a fun time together. and i was making some bacon jam as a gift for some people and putting my new gifts away and excited that i would get to have such a relaxing evening, and then a two-day week this week, and pretty much just basking in the fact that i love life and it was such a perfect day… and it was about that time that i smelled something something burning. and my timer just started going off and i was running to the kitchen but… it was too late. a thick layer of black-as-can-be bacon jam in the bottom of my pot, burned to a crisp. talk about a reality check! anyway, had to go run to the store, get more bacon, chop more onions which i haaaaaate doing, boil the burnt chunks of bacon jam off my pot and scrub the hell out of it, and start again. not the end of the world – in fact, totally minor – but a good lesson: 1.) things can change at any moment, and 2.) don’t leave the bacon jam alone. important things.
anyway, i hope you all have a beautiful week of christmas and enjoy the time with your family. and really, really enjoy it. because things can change at any moment. xoxo