Holidays in the Present

I have been thinking about how holidays change as you get older. When you are a kid it is a magical time of year filled with excitement and anticipation. Then at some point the magic fades, it is still fun but the anticipation just isn't there. This happened around 8th grade for me.

The only thing I really liked about living so far away from my family for 2 years was that we got to go home for 2 weeks every Christmas. Suddenly the holiday season was filled with magic and anticipation and a more mature inexpressable sense of safety and security and family.

As magical as it was, that magic existed because the rest of the year was trying,tumultuous and lonely. Last year I noticed that the Christmas season was not as exciting but in ways not as stressful. All of this brings me to how I feel about the holidays right now, in the present.

I do have a tendency to think these years of our lives don't really count. I'll place all the blame on my parents, aunts, and uncles. Flip through family photo albums and here is what I will see. (I'm thinking specifically about holiday pictures here) I will see Christmas while they grew up, an "uneventful" Christmas or two. My parents "first Christmas" and then mine. Not long after my arrival there are pictures of my oldest cousin, my sister, the next two cousins, then the family babies. This portrayal is not a totally accurate account of what happened, but it is am accurate account of my perception growing up.As I looked at these growing up it seemed very clear that these all adult holidays should be kept to a minimum.

At the same time, I recall a sort of wonder about those years. They seemed free and spontaneous, I remember thinking that those years were when my parents were living THEIR lives and that they were most truly themselves at that point.

Yet, now that I am at that age it seems to be the opposite. These are the years between my real life of education and my real life of being settled, or at least that is how I was feeling. I am finding that I am turning a corner, starting to see this as just as valid a part of my life as anything before or after.

Back to my original point. As my family grew up holidays started to feel lack luster because they were not as exciting. Now I am finding them as fun as they were before. I look forawrd to seeing my siblings and hearing about what they are doing. I have discovered an amazing understanding and unity of having an entirely adult family. For better or for worse we are more friends now and our manner is unnervingly causal. I'm starting to think we'll look back on these adult only holidays with a special fondness as a time when we were at oddly similar places in our lives.