First Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!  This is the first Christmas spent with a baby in the family, and hence I was told that it should be special and treated as such.  Not that Emma cares about anything other than having a boob in her mouth at all times... but in the end I felt appropriately guilty and decided that we did need a Christmas tree after all, since with a new baby we should join the rest of the Normals and behave accordingly.

We don't always have a Christmas tree.  At my mom and dad's, we always had a real tree, because my dad loves the smell, and anything else felt fake to them.  Here, in my married home, we usually have a fake one that somebody donated to us years ago.  We keep it in the garage, in a large box, together with some decorations that I picked up on the first year I moved to SmallTown.  We are lazy about putting it up, but we are even more lazy about taking it down.  For example, in the year that we lost Adrian, we kept the tree up until March or April.  I don't think it even registered with me that we should take it down.  And I felt too tired to do it.  We always work long hours, but at that time with the depression and the loss, I was utterly exhausted and could not see a thing around me.

After that year, we did not have a tree again.  I was worried that I would have to put up with people asking me again why we still have the tree up in March.  However, on Dec 24, a friend who came to visit asked me where the tree was, and looked horrified that I did not have one up despite the fact that we had a small baby in the house, so I asked my husband to bring it out of the garage.  He set it up, and I decorated it.  The only problem is that the lights on the top half of the tree burned out, so it looks quite schizophrenic with lights only on the bottom.  But hey, we have a tree.

I guess I feel guilty that we are not more into the spirit of the holidays.  Since we have no money, we did not make any gifts to each other either.  I know that the woman of the house (aka me) is the one that dictates whether we celebrate a holiday or not, and the enthusiasm level associated with it, but for some reason this year I just felt like lying in bed with Emma and tickling her, singing carols to her, and doing nothing at all.  And we enjoyed it a lot.  Despite this, I think my next year's resolutions is to celebrate holidays with a bit more style, to decorate a bit more, to save money ahead of time for gifts, and to be more disciplined about living the spirit of each holiday as it comes.  In particular I am thinking of our birthdays, Valentine's day, Easter, our wedding day (which I'd better find out if it was on May 15 or 17 'cause I forgot) and Christmas.  This is so embarrassing to admit, but I am really lazy about holidays.  But that will change.  My new year's resolution.  Is anybody else out there lazy about holidays?