Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For our last Christmas in Ohio, where all the family lives, we had a sit down dinner for 28.
Moved south for 6 years, just the two of us, went to Hard Rock Casino for T-day and Christmas most years.
This year, our first in Hawaii, we are planning a cruise out of Tahiti. If the timing for that doesn't work, we'll stay home(no Casinos in Hawaii!).
I will put up all the Christmas decorations complete with large tree or maybe 2.
try not to think too much about the wonderful Christmases past, with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins abundantly present, but now lost or far away...
This is true for so many. Back in the day, I always had a huge family Christmas gathering. This went on for years, until one cousin and six children moved out of town. Other relatives were still alive, so we carried on. Now, past ten years, parents, aunt, uncle, cousin to whom I was the closest have died. Offspring of both cousins live out-of-town. For many years, I'd visit the Michigan cousin who was like a sister to me - but she died in 2009. I could still visit her kids and hubby - we email constantly and talk on the phone - but just haven't got around to it. There is no easy way to get there by car, air, or train - so I haven't done it yet.
When the family festivities ended, every Christmas my dining room walls "talked" to me - for years. Finally and thankfully, that has ended.
Now, on Christmas/Thanksgiving my son/dil, sister and I - and possibly DIL's parents - get together. Sometimes we go out, sometimes DIL's mother cooks and has her other two children and families and us - she's a lot younger than I. When she isn't hosting, either son/dil, sister, or I are for my side of the family primarily. Brother and wife are about an hour away - and seldom leave their house anymore. We rarely see them on holidays - but do manage a visit during the summer.
So - as I've aged - every holiday has been very nice, still - sometimes even magical - but a whole lot quieter. Got a favorite German restaurant we always visit on Christmas Day - ha - and so do many of my friends from years gone by. Ya' never know who'll be there.
One thing on my bucket list - I want to attend Christmas Eve Mass in Chicago at the Holy Name Cathedral. Not Catholic, but I love the ceremony - and their music - voices and musicians - is to die for. Fortunately, the Mass is streamed (had been televised), so often I finish Christmas Eve watching that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Retire in MB
For Thanksgiving I host an "orphans" day. I have many single friends or friends whose families live too far away so we all get together at my place. I have a couple of friends who handle the cooking and they ask people to bring their specialties. We start the day with a Macy's Parade brunch for the turkey cookers and the party lasts all day with cooking and football. I provide the house, wide screen TV (actually 2 - one in the living room and one in the dining room) and the dishes. We even have a "clean up crew" that makes sure everything is back in it's proper place and prepares the "take home" baggies. We've had tamales, dim sum and spare ribs with our Turkey. It's usually a great time.
funny, I was just thinking about Thanksgiving this year. I used to go over to one of my friend's family celebration on Thanksgiving but she now goes to see the other side of her family. Last year I had a friend over, but this year she is going back east to visit her family, so....I really don't know what I'll be doing. I started feeling sad about the whole thing but then I thought it's way too early for that. I'm very traditional and love the holidays but have no family of my own here to celebrate with. I go thru this every year hoping I'll get an invite. I can't remember when I've last been alone on Thanksgiving, but it will really hurt me if I am especially since this will be my last year in SoCal it means even more to me. Thank goodness I'm a big football fan! I find I really want to share the day with people on Thanksgiving even more so than on Christmas. Christmas has religious meaning to me and I go to Mass.
I gather that, for some posters, the holiday time is poignant because of what is not happening, the people who are no longer present or the relationships that are ended.
For some of us (me, anyway) the poignance is what never happened and could have, or what I imagine could have been a positive time and not a negative. Now, I know that every gathering is not a movie-perfect picture, far from it- but obviously, a lot of people do have good times and good memories and I feel … poignant… that I don't have that.
Three people have already asked me to work the holidays for them, and it's barely August! One year, someone offered me $100 to work for her, and she asked by Labor Day. I do enjoy working, as it gives me something to do and lets someone be home who really wants to be home.
I do like hearing sung Mass/Gregorian chant, which I first heard on the radio, having not ever been in a church. I remember one time I was working with the radio on and that kind of music was playing. The day shift gal came in and asked me, "What are you listening to?" and I said, "Some kind of church music." She said, "I thought you were a non-conformist!" I wondered, what would a non-conformist listen to, punk rock or Nirvana or something? It reminded me of how conforming non-conformists can be!
We've been away from family for four years now, and we are still trying to find our holiday mojo. The first year we ordered precooked T giving dinner, it was great. We had invites to go elsewhere but our cat had surgery and we stayed home to nurse her. At Christmas, I made a traditional Polish Christmas eve dinner ( lol I used to make it for 10 people, and I still did that year even tho it was only us two ). The next year my MIL, BIL, and SIL came and it was a total disaster between the elderly MIL traveling cross country at 90 and our small condo housing all, my insistence on making big family dinners -- And then the next year we traveled to the E Coast to MIL, BIL, SIL and that was another tragic holiday, my husband and I ended up leaving to stay in a hotel, we had a great time tho once we were on our own. The 4th year, just my Hubby traveled to see his mom, I was alone for most of holiday, and I had fun visiting friends here and enjoying the cocktail parties etc. My husband swore off holidays after that. Well anyhoo, this year, a new plan. Meeting some of my family in Vegas for a few days, they will come back with us to spend New Years in Cali. Tgiving will be at a friends house, we will surely have a lot of fun, it is all of us misfits. We stopped sending gifts,we donate as much money to the poor as we used to spend on family, we do have fun during the holdiay season. I decorate a little, just to make it a little festive. I am compulsive about silver christmas trees - and candles all through the house.
I don't have any children. My mother who is nearing 90 and disabled lives with me. Most of our relatives live far away and since they have their own families closer by they don't usually visit on holidays. I invite a few friends, who also don't have relatives nearby, for dinner.
I don't cook though. I give myself a holiday, since I have to feed my mother every other day of the year. I buy the traditional holiday dinner sold by my local Fry's Supermarket (a subsidiary of Kroger's). It's delicious. The last one I bought had a ham, a container of escalloped potatoes, a corn souffle, cranberry sauce, a package of rolls, and a lemon cake. I added a green vegetable for people who don't eat corn. I've purchased others that had turkey as the main course and a pie instead of a cake. Fry's says the dinner I buy is for four, but I've found it big enough to feed six older adults and it's cheaper than buying the individual ingredients and certainly less expensive than dining in a restaurant. I get great leftovers from the ham or turkey for sandwiches later.
I get invited to a couple of big, loud parties over the holiday season, but I actually prefer the quiet meal at home over those.
To lovemyhoss - glad I had nothing I was eating or drinking in my mouth when I read your They're Coming To Take Me Away allusion, or it all would have been sprayed over the four corners of the room. Still chuckling.
I think I've posted before that DH and I make our own good times for Christmas. During the month of December, we seek out parades, plays, musicals, festivals, bazaars, markets, anything that has to to do with the holiday.
By the time the 25th comes around, we're so exhausted that we're just glad the season is over.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
