It never fails to amaze me how quickly Christmas comes and goes. After weeks of anticipation, buildup, and endless running, it is just over. Done. In a snap.
Some people seem relieved by that. I noticed when I was driving home at 3:00pm Christmas day someone in my neighborhood already had their tree sitting at the curb. Wow! What was their Christmas like:
“OK kids, take five ornaments off the tree before each present is unwrapped. Last one to clean out their stocking has to drag the tree to the road! And be quiet about it, daddy has a hangover.”
Me personally, I love Christmas. I love the feeling of the season, the songs, the lights, and I love getting together with family. However I don’t really care for the whole presents thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those presents Grinches who are going to stand on their soapbox and preach to you about how ‘Christmas is too commercialized so we should all knit scarves and mittens for starving children in Africa instead’ type people.
Rather, I just don’t personally care if I get any. It isn’t my love language. I am certainly grateful when I do get presents, but I find them to be less important each year I age. When it comes to the holidays, I probably get more excited about the food than the presents anyhow.
On Christmas Eve I spent all morning and much of the afternoon tied to my kitchen, and it was great! I started the day with my favorite Bacon Egg and Cheese breakfast sandwich and then moved on to all of the holiday cooking that needed to be done. All while getting lost in my favorite Christmas songs on Spotify.
Though, I will let you in on a little known drawback to the glamorous life of a food blogger: No one wants to cook for you anymore! After publishing my blog post about Roasted Ham and Potatoes the other week I quickly got two separate messages from family informing me that they either were not going to cook ham for the Christmas dinners any longer or that I would have to come over and bake it for them. Though I must say, after eating 10+ lbs of leftover ham from that blog post for a week straight, I wouldn’t have cared much if I didn’t have to eat it for the holidays too!
In the end it really boils down to this: I don’t care what presents I get for Christmas, I don’t care what we are eating or who makes it, what I really like about Christmas is spending time with the family.
When my family gets together we always have a good time. Sure our family has their quirks, but who’s doesn’t? We cook enough food to feed an army, stuff our faces till we’re fat, act like we are little children again, and laugh till our faces hurt.
Is Christmas too commercialized? Maybe, but I sure like seeing the look on my 4 year old step-son’s face when he opened the 5’ tall teddy bear I bought him and I am really grateful for the wonderful stroller my mother purchased for my wife and I’s imminent newborn baby girl. But in the end, Christmas would still be great without those things. I have a good job, great family and a fun blog. I can’t complain about much.
I look forward to spending 2015 with you all. Thanks for reading Fox Valley Foodie!
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