Ghosts of Christmas Past

I miss these Christmases. Not the being a kid part (although, that's totally appealing sometimes), but the getting together at my grandmother's house with my aunts and uncles and cousins.



But grandma's gone. And my cousins have families of their own now. And we're more spread out geographically than we were growing up. So, it's just me and my mom and dad at Christmas. And the older we all get the more I start to think about what it's going to be like when they're gone. Which is totally not what the spirit of the season is about, but it's where my brain goes.

I know I've glamorized these family Christmases. I mean, I do distinctly remember how awkward they would get. How no one really wanted to go, but we all did anyway. How we would all eat before we went because grandma's cooking was never very good (and often consisted of leftovers from a church supper, in like April) and gave everyone gas. How very COLD her house was and how we would secretly turn up the thermostat while pretending to have conversations outside the bathroom.

I guess...I guess I just miss getting together with my family. I never see one set of cousins anymore. It's been years. The other set I see once, maybe twice a year, which is partly my fault because I don't go home for every holiday. But none of us really make an effort. Which I feel bad about sometimes. But then proceed to do nothing about it. And then I feel bad all over again.

I kind of can't wait for the holidays to be over. I'm looking forward to returning to my normal routine. The one where people everywhere aren't so stressed with Christmas cheer and where traffic returns to normal and you can set foot in stores without wanting to hang yourself. And where I can stop thinking about the ghosts of Christmases past.