Vacation: Chirstmas Day
I had been so excited to see all of my family on Christmas that I guess I had worked up my expectations. I thought this year would be more emotional, since my grandfathers passing, but it wasn't, in fact it felt a bit rushed and cold. People ate, in reality they stuffed their faces as quickly as possible, and rushed onto desert right after. This is nothing like Christmas in the past, it usually took about ten people to repeat that dinner was served before the others would quit chatting and pay attention to the food. After diner everyone would linger, sit down and talk some more. By the time it was all over most of us had soar throats from doing so much talking the whole day. It was eerily quiet, with a few awkward comments here and there.
I gave away the DVDs, Grandmom wanted a whole formal presentation, but people didn't respond the way I had expected, I recieved a couple of nice comments but instead of tearing off the bows and begging to watch the movies, like I had expected, they just set them down nicely beside them and went on to eat desert. My Grandmother was a little crushed because of everyones reaction so she nominated the idea that we sit and watch the DVDs, at that people started walking away and hinting that we open gifts instead. I'm sure they appreciate the work that I've done and I understand the hesitation and the awkwardness that people felt, but I would have so much rather had a bunch of crying emotional family members by my side than these lifeless silent strangers.
Emotions aside, it was a beautiful Christmas, the food was fantastic, it was sunny and breezy, everyone was healthy and looked happy. The grandchildren (my generation) seemed the carry the whole day, we kept the conversations going, we added life to our silent parents and it seemed to work well that way. It's amazing to see my cousins grow up so quickly, they are all in their twenties and all of them taller than me (the second oldest).
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