Saturday, December 26, 2020

'Twas A Very Weird Christmas

... for both wife kitteh and myself.

One of my sons and his wife bought a house this year. They live about 40 minutes away from us. Up until now, Christmas had always been at our house and all the little kittehs came home to celebrate. This year, daughter-in-law kitteh decided she really wanted to host the family. That meant breaking a longstanding tradition. It also meant that Christmas Eve was just the two of us, all alone.

Weird, man. Super weird.

But normal, man. Super normal.

This Christmas was a watershed for the family. The young, newly-housed kittehs deserve to create their own traditions and not simply be locked into ours until we die. Soon, we hope, there will be kittens on the way and then they really will start family traditions. That will be beautiful and we'll adapt to it. It'll be OK.

So we went to their place and had a lovely time. She's an excellent hostess and has turned their house into a warm and inviting home. He's a good man and a devoted husband. Seeing them always makes us very happy.

Even if the tradition is new, the family love is old. It's mature enough to deal with the passing of a baton.

Next year, I want to show up looking like this.

1 comment:

Ohioan@Heart said...

It is odd as the kids move on to their own families with their own traditions.

Our two married sons (both with kids of their own) are each 30 minutes away, one to the North and the other to the South. We’ve settled into a fairly regular pattern of dinner at Southern son’s with Northern son and the whole crew on the 23rd. Then Mrs Ohioan and I go up to Northern Son’s Family on the 24th. Then they go to the wife’s parents on the 25th, and Southern son comes here around lunch time on the 25th. Time together for the cousins, Christmas AM for the kids with their kids, and time for all the grandkids with us. Took several years for that to settle out, but everybody seems happy to play host and go visiting while still having time for just the nuclear family units on Christmas Morning.

Best of all the traditions expand, rather than being simply abandoned.