This will be my first Christmas where we won't be travelling back home. It was our decision for many reasons, and though I am happy about it, it's hard not to feel a sense of loss. With the holidays fast approaching (10 days, say what?) it's becoming more and more real that I won't be seeing my Tennessee family, or getting a break from the snow, unwrapping presents on the hardwood floor under a cedar tree cut down from mom's flowerbed, eating deep-fried turkey, Christmas and New Years breakfast at Granny's, taking pictures by Daddy's redneck lit-reindeer, wearing matching pajamas with my thister, eating too many cookies out of a santa cookie jar, wanting to kill my parents' neurotic dog who barks into my window at 2 am because she thought she saw lightning and wants to "chase" the storm, the list goes on and on.
With all that said, I have a lot to be grateful for and excited about. My Texas family (Jason's folks') are travelling up here to spend Christmas with us. I'm super excited about the boys getting to wake up on Christmas morning in their own beds, open presents under their own tree, and just to share all their joy! They will be rotten for sure, when Santa, and Grand-Clause(s) come. We get to start and carry on our own family Christmas traditions. But there will be quite a few old ones that we'll keep, too, like...
1. A REAL tree. But it's not the traditional cedar we've always had. All they have up here is pine. Actually, I just keep calling it pine. I think it's some kind of fir. But you know what I'm talking about.
2. Hot chocolate on the stovetop. No boxed mixes for me. I want hershey's cocoa, milk, vanilla, salt and sugar. I've even whipped the whip cream. By hand. Without a mixer. I'll have a right forearm like Popeye by New Years.
3. Christmas and New Year's breakfast, like Granny's. Complete with grits, sausage, eggs, and biscuits.
4. Waking up at an ungawdly hour before the sun has even come up on Christmas. Well, maybe.
5. Matching pajamas. Somehow, I will make it happen.
6. Listening to "Merry Christmas from the Family" by Robert Earl Keen. And I'm totally going to make champagne punch and homemade eggnog (but for the record, that's not an old family tradition).
7. Swearing while putting up the Christmas decorations, lights, cooking Christmas dinner, decorating the gingerbread house, and assembling toys, etc on Christmas morning. I call it, "Christmas language".
8. Cookies, cookies, and more cookies
9. A Christmas afternoon nap.
10. Watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve.
So, we'll be in Tennessee in our hearts, and maybe we can virtually travel to see everyone via skype.
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