Thanksgiving, I've noticed, has been getting looked over more and more over the years. It's like all the meaning has been sucked out and replaced with nothing more than a day to gorge ourselves with food. There are hardly any decorations in the stores anymore.
My family always gets together at Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Grandma makes mashed potatoes, turkey, grave, cranberries, stuffing, mandarin orange jello, stuffing, apple and pumpkin pie, a relish tray, and homemade bread. We also like to bring cookies or other odds and ends to help complete the dinner.
We also sit around the table and visit, catch up on each other's lives (on half of the family lives in another state). After dinner we sit around and talk until we decide it's time to go home and that's the end of Thanksgiving for us. It's not much and we don't sit around talking about what we are thankful for because we do that throughout the year on our own, in our own way. Thanksgiving for my family is about just that, family.
Now on to Christmas. I know that for a lot of people Christmas is their favorite time of year. That's fine but damn it, could we keep the decorations out of the store until after Halloween? It's like Christmas is trying to take over everything. Christmas is nice and another family oriented holiday for my family, but it seems that for a lot of people its not exactly a holiday of giving but rather of sales, shopping, and receiving. It's also a pissing contest for some to see who got who a better, more expensive or expensive looking gift. Now that's just silly, it's not about how much you spend, it's the thought. And it's certainly not about proving to your friends and family that you have more money than they do in an attempt to show them up or make them feel like shit. (This is something that also occurs in my family, which is why I hate it so much.)
For my part, I try to find things for friends and family that are useful, practical, and still fun and very much 'them'. But it's kind of hard when you don't have a lot of money. So my solution to that is to make people gifts using the skills I've learned over the years. I can paint someone a nice picture, sew a quilt for someone and customize it with embroidery, or make something yummy for them to eat, and all of it I can do at home and save some money. Sure I have to go out and get the things I need but I avoid the Christmas rush, avoid all the stress from shopping, and most of my friends and family really appreciate what I make for them. Besides, sometimes gifts are better homemade.
I am also going to make some decorations for the house instead of buying a bunch of stuff.
My family always gets together at Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Grandma makes mashed potatoes, turkey, grave, cranberries, stuffing, mandarin orange jello, stuffing, apple and pumpkin pie, a relish tray, and homemade bread. We also like to bring cookies or other odds and ends to help complete the dinner.
We also sit around the table and visit, catch up on each other's lives (on half of the family lives in another state). After dinner we sit around and talk until we decide it's time to go home and that's the end of Thanksgiving for us. It's not much and we don't sit around talking about what we are thankful for because we do that throughout the year on our own, in our own way. Thanksgiving for my family is about just that, family.
Now on to Christmas. I know that for a lot of people Christmas is their favorite time of year. That's fine but damn it, could we keep the decorations out of the store until after Halloween? It's like Christmas is trying to take over everything. Christmas is nice and another family oriented holiday for my family, but it seems that for a lot of people its not exactly a holiday of giving but rather of sales, shopping, and receiving. It's also a pissing contest for some to see who got who a better, more expensive or expensive looking gift. Now that's just silly, it's not about how much you spend, it's the thought. And it's certainly not about proving to your friends and family that you have more money than they do in an attempt to show them up or make them feel like shit. (This is something that also occurs in my family, which is why I hate it so much.)
For my part, I try to find things for friends and family that are useful, practical, and still fun and very much 'them'. But it's kind of hard when you don't have a lot of money. So my solution to that is to make people gifts using the skills I've learned over the years. I can paint someone a nice picture, sew a quilt for someone and customize it with embroidery, or make something yummy for them to eat, and all of it I can do at home and save some money. Sure I have to go out and get the things I need but I avoid the Christmas rush, avoid all the stress from shopping, and most of my friends and family really appreciate what I make for them. Besides, sometimes gifts are better homemade.
I am also going to make some decorations for the house instead of buying a bunch of stuff.
We ended up buying stuff to decorate but I am excited to make snow men for our window and stuff like that. And, yeah, boo to consumerism and pissing contests and yay for long conversations, long hugs, late nights cuddling, and lots of candles and cinnamon pine cones. I love Christmas for the connotative meaning of togetherness and selflessness and perseverance.
ReplyDelete