Happy holidays
It's taken me a little while to catch up at work after being on vacation (the curse of Intuit or probably any office -- the backlog of email after a vacation makes it feel like you're working twice as hard to get to where you were before you left), so I haven't done much posting. But now that I've got some time off again -- and I've luxuriated in not doing much for the last couple of days -- I'm finally getting back to doing a post.
We've had a quiet holiday here, and it's been rather nice. Last night we had dinner at my mom's with a small gathering of family. Aaron was there with his dog, Bella, and Devon spent the whole evening terrorizing the dog. She'd yell, "Belwa, Belwa!" and then sprint after the dog at full speed; Bella would just as quickly run to hide from her. Then when Devon found Bella, she'd hug and pet her, driving the dog to distraction (this petting eventually led to ear pulling and other types of aggressive affection). Luckily Bella is a very low-key, even tempered dog, otherwise I'm sure that all of the harrassment would have ended badly. Bella is at the point, though, when she sees Devon, Bella runs in the opposite direction. She and Aaron are also coming to Sea Ranch for a couple of days, so Devon will get to see Bella again soon (to her great delight and I'm sure the dog's dismay).
We exchanged a few gifts, but this was definitely what I guess I'd call "Christmas light" -- no tree, no decorations, nothing other than a few presents (mostly wrapped in newspaper -- which has generally been my dad's signature gift wrap, so I was suprised that my mom appropriated it this year). This suited me just fine, since I'm uncomfortable with celebrating Christmast anyway. The funny thing is that this didn't used to bother me at all, but as I've gotten older, or maybe because I have a child now (or maybe both), the whole idea of celebrating in Christian holiday is awkward and unappealing. I'm not religious, so I don't have any interest in celebrating Christ's birth; and in fact, I don't want to have any whiff of that in my home. What I would like to find are some nice, non-religious traditions for our family -- and I have to say, at least in the US, aside from Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, there are almost no holidays that aren't associated with Christianity. So it becomes very difficult to develop meaningful family traditions outside of religion. Christmas is especially loaded, since I think it's hard for children to not have a tree or presents when just about every child has them -- but I also don't want to buy into the holiday as a consumer experience only. Walt and I haven't figured out a good balance here.
We also did a sort of Christmas-lite this morning at our home -- no tree, no decorations and a couple of gifts. I don't know if it's worse to do "lite," which is like a super watered-down un-holiday, or just to do nothing at all and absorb all of the holiday stuff that others are doing. Maybe it's like being an agnostic -- the affiliation where you can't really decide if God exists or not, so it's the one quasi-religious affiliation that rather lets you have your cake and eat it too. No Christmas is just declaring that you're athiest, but "Christmas-lite" is like being an agnostic. We still haven't gone downtown with Devon so she could see the Christmas decorations in Union Square, but perhaps we'll do it tomorrow -- and that may be the way to go in terms of traditions -- a few light decorations at home but mainly watching the extravaganzas of others.
We did buy Devon a couple of gifts, which she opened with gusto. I noticed last night as well that much of the thrill is in the opening of presents but not necessarily the presents themselves. She opened gifts for me and Walt and also for Aaron, and she was just as happy ripping off wrapping paper and handing a gift to someone as she was keeping a gift for herself. Maybe our tradition will turn out to be unwrapping empty boxes! I will post some photos later of today's events.
It's been overcast today, but it didn't rain, so that was nice. I was surprised, though, at how quiet it was on the street in the morning. By the time we finished breakfast and had opened our gifts, it was about 10:30, yet no one was outside. When I was young, by late morning the street would be filled with children playing with (and showing off) new toys -- in fact, aside from opening the gifts, the best part about Christmas was trying out things. I distinctly remember the year I got a skateboard and how eager I was to try it out on the street. That may still happen in other areas; but in the city, the streets (at least in our neighborhood) are practically deserted. We verified this when we took a walk with Devon on her tricycle; we only saw a few other families and people out walking, and there were no children playing at all. One interesting exception to this, though, are the Chinese businesses -- on Clement Street, every Asian restaurant was open, so we could have eaten just about anything we wanted within that spectrum (and not only were they open, but they were packed!).
We've also been spending a fair amount of time at the JCC in the last couple of days -- we actually meant to go there today for a swim, but by the time Devon woke up from her nap, we didn't have quite enought time. One rather nice and totally unintentional thing about the JCC is that since it's the JCC, they are open all during the Christmas holidays (of course if you want to go to the gym in mid-September, forget it, since it seemed like all Jewish high holy days fell during September). We even got babysitting yesterday for a nice workout (and if we had gotten it together today, we could have gotten childcare today too). It's really been nice in the last couple of days to wake up late, go to the gym and do a little (or a lot of ) household putter.
My mom and Jon are renting a place at Sea Ranch again this year, so we'll go up there for a few days. I feel like I've hardly worked at all in December, and it's been rather delightful. I hope I feel recharged by the time the new year rolls around. We'll be spending time swimming (Sea Ranch has wonderful pools) and taking ocean walks. The Pacific is really relaxing in the winter -- there's no pretending that it's a sunbathing coast at all, so in a sense it frees people to just walk along and enjoy the scenery. I'm looking forward to it.
We've had a quiet holiday here, and it's been rather nice. Last night we had dinner at my mom's with a small gathering of family. Aaron was there with his dog, Bella, and Devon spent the whole evening terrorizing the dog. She'd yell, "Belwa, Belwa!" and then sprint after the dog at full speed; Bella would just as quickly run to hide from her. Then when Devon found Bella, she'd hug and pet her, driving the dog to distraction (this petting eventually led to ear pulling and other types of aggressive affection). Luckily Bella is a very low-key, even tempered dog, otherwise I'm sure that all of the harrassment would have ended badly. Bella is at the point, though, when she sees Devon, Bella runs in the opposite direction. She and Aaron are also coming to Sea Ranch for a couple of days, so Devon will get to see Bella again soon (to her great delight and I'm sure the dog's dismay).
We exchanged a few gifts, but this was definitely what I guess I'd call "Christmas light" -- no tree, no decorations, nothing other than a few presents (mostly wrapped in newspaper -- which has generally been my dad's signature gift wrap, so I was suprised that my mom appropriated it this year). This suited me just fine, since I'm uncomfortable with celebrating Christmast anyway. The funny thing is that this didn't used to bother me at all, but as I've gotten older, or maybe because I have a child now (or maybe both), the whole idea of celebrating in Christian holiday is awkward and unappealing. I'm not religious, so I don't have any interest in celebrating Christ's birth; and in fact, I don't want to have any whiff of that in my home. What I would like to find are some nice, non-religious traditions for our family -- and I have to say, at least in the US, aside from Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, there are almost no holidays that aren't associated with Christianity. So it becomes very difficult to develop meaningful family traditions outside of religion. Christmas is especially loaded, since I think it's hard for children to not have a tree or presents when just about every child has them -- but I also don't want to buy into the holiday as a consumer experience only. Walt and I haven't figured out a good balance here.
We also did a sort of Christmas-lite this morning at our home -- no tree, no decorations and a couple of gifts. I don't know if it's worse to do "lite," which is like a super watered-down un-holiday, or just to do nothing at all and absorb all of the holiday stuff that others are doing. Maybe it's like being an agnostic -- the affiliation where you can't really decide if God exists or not, so it's the one quasi-religious affiliation that rather lets you have your cake and eat it too. No Christmas is just declaring that you're athiest, but "Christmas-lite" is like being an agnostic. We still haven't gone downtown with Devon so she could see the Christmas decorations in Union Square, but perhaps we'll do it tomorrow -- and that may be the way to go in terms of traditions -- a few light decorations at home but mainly watching the extravaganzas of others.
We did buy Devon a couple of gifts, which she opened with gusto. I noticed last night as well that much of the thrill is in the opening of presents but not necessarily the presents themselves. She opened gifts for me and Walt and also for Aaron, and she was just as happy ripping off wrapping paper and handing a gift to someone as she was keeping a gift for herself. Maybe our tradition will turn out to be unwrapping empty boxes! I will post some photos later of today's events.
It's been overcast today, but it didn't rain, so that was nice. I was surprised, though, at how quiet it was on the street in the morning. By the time we finished breakfast and had opened our gifts, it was about 10:30, yet no one was outside. When I was young, by late morning the street would be filled with children playing with (and showing off) new toys -- in fact, aside from opening the gifts, the best part about Christmas was trying out things. I distinctly remember the year I got a skateboard and how eager I was to try it out on the street. That may still happen in other areas; but in the city, the streets (at least in our neighborhood) are practically deserted. We verified this when we took a walk with Devon on her tricycle; we only saw a few other families and people out walking, and there were no children playing at all. One interesting exception to this, though, are the Chinese businesses -- on Clement Street, every Asian restaurant was open, so we could have eaten just about anything we wanted within that spectrum (and not only were they open, but they were packed!).
We've also been spending a fair amount of time at the JCC in the last couple of days -- we actually meant to go there today for a swim, but by the time Devon woke up from her nap, we didn't have quite enought time. One rather nice and totally unintentional thing about the JCC is that since it's the JCC, they are open all during the Christmas holidays (of course if you want to go to the gym in mid-September, forget it, since it seemed like all Jewish high holy days fell during September). We even got babysitting yesterday for a nice workout (and if we had gotten it together today, we could have gotten childcare today too). It's really been nice in the last couple of days to wake up late, go to the gym and do a little (or a lot of ) household putter.
My mom and Jon are renting a place at Sea Ranch again this year, so we'll go up there for a few days. I feel like I've hardly worked at all in December, and it's been rather delightful. I hope I feel recharged by the time the new year rolls around. We'll be spending time swimming (Sea Ranch has wonderful pools) and taking ocean walks. The Pacific is really relaxing in the winter -- there's no pretending that it's a sunbathing coast at all, so in a sense it frees people to just walk along and enjoy the scenery. I'm looking forward to it.
posted by Devon Szalva at
9:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home