This will be our, mine and Joe's, first set of holidays together. For the past three Christmases, we have split time between our two families. We have never had Thanksgiving together. So, there are all sorts of new emotions coming along with the holidays.
I was feeling rather homesick. Between the stockings Mom sent us, made by my grandma for each member of the family, and the care package from Joe's mom that included Christmas placemats, I've been dying to decorate. I've convinced myself that seeing a bit of Christmas & feeling it will make the holiday feel... real.
Because for now, it feels empty without the visits to family, the tree decorating & the candy-making. When our stockings arrived, they still smelled like Christmas at my parents–the candles, spices & distinct smell of my parents' house. I've kept the stockings sealed in their plastic bags, letting myself steal moments of that home smell.
Don't get me wrong. I am excited. This weekend, we're celebrating our first Thanksgiving with our new, multinational family. The Americans & Brits working at the university have gotten together with their dates & close friends to plan Thanksgiving, including the football, hand turkeys, beer & pie. It will be fun, a nice day of English-only festivities. A day of feeling more connected to our families back home.
When I thought of Thursday in the apartment while the family is gathering together to eat their turkey, we'll be curling into bed after a day of, well, not a whole lot. I decided to decorate the apartment that day, in honor of my family's tradition of decorating the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. This way, while they're decorating, we'll be stuffing our faces with turkey. (Well, not exactly. Time changes ruin that, but it's the idea I'm after.)
This means that we had to go out for some holiday decorations. I could go crazy for Christmas, & we haven't even BEEN to any Christmas markets yet. I only let myself by the essentials:
- A small tree
- Small wooden ornaments for a small tree
- Small strands of tinsel to wrap around a small tree
- Four silver candles
- Two silver things to put two silver candles in
Something I've been dying to by for myself & my mother is an Advent calendar. Not the chocolate kind (though I wouldn't complain), but one like the gorgeous house seen several time in Christmas Vacation. You know? The few notes of music accompanied by a large hand opening a small door on a house with LOTS of doors? Like this one. No, really. Click it. Then click the "Purchase" button & try not to poop your pants when you see it's more than $1000 by the time it reaches your house. Count those zeros again. Crap.
I was counting on getting something like this for Mom for Christmas, & hopefully finding one for myself. I won't rule it out for the future, but obviously it won't be the one she's always mentioned she'd like while we watch the movie (usually on the night of Thanksgiving).
Since our wreath lacks a bit, and since I'm trying to figure out more about my faith (like praying the Rosary in French, which is beautiful and quite fascinating) I decided to dig into Advent a bit more. Then I found this site, with a bit of education and Christmas spirit for each day of December and–BONUS–the last two days of November. So I'll be doing that and lighting my candles to remind me of my family back home, doing the same.
All of this is to say that I miss my family acutely now that the beauty of fall has passed and the changing seasons and holiday music are upon us. I'm finding every way I can to feel connected to them, and I look forward to creating new traditions that Joe & I will continue through our married years.
More cheer to come, with updates on Advent, chocolate Advent calendars I find & eat all by myself, and maybe even some Where's Joe's Head for your holiday!
Have your holidays started yet? When do you let yourself switch over to holiday mode?
4 comments:
I loved this post. Especially the "poop your pants" part. It's my goal this year to get an advent calendar, too! They have really inexpensive ones at Hallmark & Meijer (good for me, probably not so helpful for you).
Anyways, one of my new Christmas traditions have been snowglobes! Last year I encouraged (read: demanded) that Steven & my Nana (two people dear to my heart) get me a snowglobe to decorate with. Hopefully I'll get another one this year.
I hope you & Joe have a great Christmas season...your very first one as husband & wife!
Thanks, Courtney. I hope you get your snow globe & look forward to reading about your holiday journal pages :)
you are far more holidayish than i am : ) and i wonder if, in part, that's something to do with the sharpness the holidays take when you're AWAY from the places/people with whom you normally spend them. part of me says, "yay, look at you creating your own traditions so early in your marriage!" and part of me says, "oh, how bittersweet..." because the holidays ARE my family. i have no other tradition at Thanksgiving/Christmas but being with them (seriously...we didn't really have any set way of doing things, except the part where we always messed up my grandparents' nativity set).
so i read my own holiday experience (family and nothing else) into this blog post and feel for you.
HOWEVER, i'm confident you two will make your own kind of JoeMeg holidays. and they'll be lovely : )
(and by the way, "holiday mode" shifts for me every year, but it usually begins with grumpiness, and THAT is entirely dependent on when the consumer culture at large gets busy. so, say, before Halloween? the sweetness of the season really doesn't hit me until i'm driving home to my family's for the Thanksgiving meal, leaves me for a while, and comes back late on Christmas eve when i'm by our lit tree in a dark living room.)
@Sarah: By the lit tree in the dark living room... this is the absolute essential component of the Christmas feeling–knowing that your family is asleep in the next room after eating too many cookies. I appreciate this comment so much.
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