Ho ho ho, sniff sniff sniff

I grew up with strong holiday traditions: Christmas Eve, we drove to my grandparents’ house around 7, ate a buffet-style dinner, and opened presents until the wee hours. Drove home, woke up and groggily dragged in black bags filled with presents. Christmas morning, woke up to delight in our new goodies, and then prepared for Christmas Day with the other side of the family.

B had the a similar upbringing, a little bit different traditions but always the same thing. Presents on Christmas Eve while listening to the radio broadcast from the church, a huge, fantastic dinner on Christmas Day with rice pudding with a hidden almond for dessert, and Boxing Day the day after with yet another wonderful dinner.

Now we have our kids. Isak is 6 and got to have B’s traditional Christmas for 3 years (’99 - ‘01)…Anja is 4 and only got 1 year, 2001, and she was only 9 months old.

We pack up our apartment Dec. 5-7 with a final small shipment on the 16th. We’ll leave here the week before Christmas to be at my parents’ house, and then leave there Dec. 30/31 to move to Spain.

Last year, I was deployed on the Lincoln over the holidays. B took the kids to my parents’ house, which was the first time they’ve been there for the holidays.

The year before, we were packing over Christmas for our move to Mukilteo on Jan. 1.

The year before that, we moved into our house on Whidbey Island on Dec. 23 and didn’t have anything (we bought tinsel and tape and made an outline of a tree on the wall with a star cut out of a paper bag).

I miss driving around on the crunchy snow-covered streets admiring “Candy Cane Lane” (where almost ALL the houses were gaudily decked out for the occasion) when I was a kid.

I miss the excitement of spending time with B’s family for the 4 years I got to have Christmas with him. We met on Dec. 11th and only talked on the phone after that until Christmas…he lived about an hour and a half from me….I remember him calling as I was sitting on the floor in my barracks room in a puddle of tears, my first Christmas away from my family, no friends or family to spend it with, and invited me to his family’s Christmas celebration. I remember going there and feeling completely and totally welcomed despite the cultural differences and the language barrier. After that, Christmas brought such a nice memory of that first Christmas we spent together.

And now I have no solid traditions to give to my kids, and it makes me so sad. I don’t want our holiday tradition to be sitting in an airport, living out of suitcases, no tree to decorate…I want it to be relaxing, quiet, at home enjoying the time off school and work together.

Fortunately, we’ll be in Spain for 3 years and shouldn’t have any disruptions over those years, but we’ll still have to decide: Do we fly to Wisconsin? Do we fly to Iceland? Do we stay in Spain and maybe everyone will fly to us? Wishful thinking…

Jack Handy, Life | RSS 2.0 | Respond | Trackback |