The only two Holidays that my family pays any attention to now is Thanksgiving and Christmas. One branch also goes all out for Easter. After I got married a different event was added by my parents. My wife and I were from two different religion backgrounds and since we wanted the kids to be exposed to both, that meant two morning services followed by going to my parents for a huge Easter Brunch where dad broke out his counter top grill and supplied a massive number of eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, pancakes and toast. My youngest had a birthday in the beginning of April which meant that Easter and her Birthday were often on the same day. Oh, she did not like having to go to two church services on her birthday!
Thanksgiving is one of our few total family events and it is customarily Turkey. This year I am providing the main course. I used to do the whole thing in rotation. Now I don't have the room for the family in my Apartment. (good planning, eh) Now my youngest hosts Thanksgiving (I just suppling the Turkey this year) Traditionally, my family always had a Christmas Eve gathering with food, food and more food and my First born has carried on that tradition and hosts with all types of different contributions from all of us. On Christmas I go to one in the morning for gift exchange and ham dinner (usually my giving a whole lot more then receiving) and the other branch in the late afternoon gift exchange (same result concerning gift quantities) and Prime Rib Dinner. All and all we consume more food on those three days then the rest of the holiday season combined.
Then, of course, all the credit cards need to be paid off in January. I hate that time of year. Due to mostly someone else's poor planning, Granddaughters B'day on Dec. 11, Grandson's B'day on December 28 with Christmas in between, My daughters B'day on Jan. 16 (I'll take half the blame for that timing), My sisters B'day on Jan. 23 finally settling down after my Grandson's B'day on Feb.10. After all that I have to allow my Credit Cards time to cool down after nearly melting over the previous 3 months.
Needless to say that makes the winter months just barely tolerable. You can imagine my love of that time of year when I was quite often up to my hips in snow.
However, compared to the early years of marriage when we didn't have a pot to p*** in, or a window to throw it out of. At that time I had my parents, 4 in-law siblings, father and mother in-law, 8 in-law nieces and nephews with Christmas and a couple of birthdays during that time as well, not to mention my parents anniversary and our anniversary within 4 days of each other in January. Of course, later I didn't have them around, some had passed and others I just lost track of but did have my own kids and grandkids. No wonder this season depresses me.
When I think back on the last 50 years if I had the money back spent on gifts for family members I could probably have a villa on the French Riviera. If I had the cash for stuff I received over those year it's possible that I might have been able to buy a small area rug for that villa. I try not to think about that.
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