Happy Whatever!

posted 28th December 2011    Written by: Laurenne    CATEGORY: All Posts, Laurenne

The Holidays!

The holidays used to make me sad. I’m an only child, so I would spend Christmas jealous of all the people with big families who would spend days together eating, gossiping, playing games, and doing what everyone with big families do (I have no idea– I just imagined it was a million times cooler than what I was doing.). With just my mom to celebrate, I would feel gypped, especially because it’s hard to play family games with two people. Go Fish can only last so long. My mom knew how I felt about our teeny family, so she started a tradition: traveling on Christmas! It lasted a few years. We went to Hawaii, Charleston, on a few cruises.

You’d never guess but that got expensive. And after too many delayed flights out of Chicago, we decided to reinstate a holiday at our house. I like it. It’s home. We drink egg nog. We leave cookies for Santa. We lay around in our pajamas and watch Christmas movies.

I’ve since realized that I may not have a huge family, but I have one person in my life who knows me more than any other. With my mom, I can be absolutely comfortable. We can reminisce and be honest and laugh at ourselves. Instead of feeling sorry for not having many people, I’ve decided to be grateful that I have one extremely unique relationship.

We started a new tradition a few years ago. Now, on Christmas Eve, we cook. We find intricate recipes we’ve never made before, shop for all the exotic ingredients, and spend hours trying to make them edible. Most of the time it works. This year it did! [Here's a short video!]

I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what you’re celebrating or what you do or the number of people in your party. If it’s something with the people you love, that’s all that counts. Happy whatever you celebrate!

Bookmark and Share
Comments (2)

2 Responses to “Happy Whatever!”

  • justrealhappy Says:
    December 28th, 2011 at 9:20 am

    I Iike this because it is so true. It is so important to be thankful for what makes your life and even the way you celebrate the holidays unique for you. I am glad you recognize. I hope you had a great holiday season with your mom.

  • KristenCF Says:
    December 28th, 2011 at 10:30 am

    I love that video- especially love that part where you show your mom the wine before you open it, like a fancy sommelier :)
    I have to totally agree about the traditions- even though I come from a huge family and we have a ton of things we always do, this year I completely embraced doing the things I wanted that made me happy instead of what was expected of me. It made me so much happier to have a quiet Christmas morning and night to myself than it would have to be surrounded by cousins who only bring me frustration!

Leave a Reply

name*


email* (will not be published)


website


comments