So my brother works for a music entertainment company which has kept him living on a tour bus for the past few months. However, this past weekend the show he was working was in nyc so luckily he, my mom, and I found the time to have dinner together for the first time probably since I graduated in May. I've never had that family that comes home every night and hangs out together and chats about the awesome panini you had for lunch and the weird thing Tom said at work that day. We all let the busyness of life win the majority of the time...all generally function on different and totally wacked out time schedules... and all always wanted chicken, spaghetti or just a bowl of cereal for dinner on different days of the week. These kinds of things were a part of our routine, our traditions if you will...sitting down for dinner tonight however felt pretty good. My brother and I are like peas and carrots (stolen from Gump) and I certainly love and miss having him around. We were talking about the next time he was going to be back in New York and suddenly my mom blurted out, "Dan and Joan are not going to be in NY for Christmas by the way, they're staying at their house in Florida this year."
I can't expect you to understand the weight of this statement but just know that I could write a whole bunch o blogs about the "bon vivant" experiences I've had at Dan and Joan's house on Christmas every year for all of the years I can remember. This is huge and shocking and sad and weird and bad news for my brother and me. Dan and Joan are not even technically "family members" but because my mom has maybe 3 and a half 'normal' members in her family and my dad is foreign (so his family has their own very French Christmas traditions), D&J are those friends of your parents that you wish were actually your family and call them aunt and uncle anyway. I still cannot seem to shake it from my mind which is consistently focused on: no but seriously, what are we going to do for Christmas?
This whole situation has me once again thinking about and questioning life's changes and comfort levels and traditions and what we're all "used to" and why we as human beings absolutely live for routines in so many ways. Is it the end of the world that we won't spend Christmas eating home-made lasagna and drinking Jack Daniel's when we're cold sitting on the porch playing some strange game where my brother and I can use our brother/sister skills to dominate? No, I guess it's not...I mean there have been changes that we have dealt with before...like the first Christmas my parents were not together but both came to the Christmas party at D&J's and the first year my dad decided to move to Florida and not be at the traditional party and the year that I was dating Edmund and left early and missed out on a whole bunch of bon vivant at D&J's. It's just weird to think about...maybe next year my brother's going to be in Louisiana with his girlfriend's family for Christmas and maybe next year I'll be living and working overseas and will secretly almost be happy that D&J aren't having their Christmas party because at least I'll know I won't be missing it. There's really just no way of knowing. It's weird when the same week you turn 22 on the 22nd and you're in grad school not loving it and you're having a sit down dinner of Chinese food for the first time in months with your family and you find out your Christmas tradition has been 86ed and you're legitimately sad. Cheers to another part of my "bon vivant" experiences in the future involving being a bit more open to such changes. My mom is cute though, she said: "I'll cook anything you want on Christmas!" followed up by a quick "Well, maybe."
I can't expect you to understand the weight of this statement but just know that I could write a whole bunch o blogs about the "bon vivant" experiences I've had at Dan and Joan's house on Christmas every year for all of the years I can remember. This is huge and shocking and sad and weird and bad news for my brother and me. Dan and Joan are not even technically "family members" but because my mom has maybe 3 and a half 'normal' members in her family and my dad is foreign (so his family has their own very French Christmas traditions), D&J are those friends of your parents that you wish were actually your family and call them aunt and uncle anyway. I still cannot seem to shake it from my mind which is consistently focused on: no but seriously, what are we going to do for Christmas?
This whole situation has me once again thinking about and questioning life's changes and comfort levels and traditions and what we're all "used to" and why we as human beings absolutely live for routines in so many ways. Is it the end of the world that we won't spend Christmas eating home-made lasagna and drinking Jack Daniel's when we're cold sitting on the porch playing some strange game where my brother and I can use our brother/sister skills to dominate? No, I guess it's not...I mean there have been changes that we have dealt with before...like the first Christmas my parents were not together but both came to the Christmas party at D&J's and the first year my dad decided to move to Florida and not be at the traditional party and the year that I was dating Edmund and left early and missed out on a whole bunch of bon vivant at D&J's. It's just weird to think about...maybe next year my brother's going to be in Louisiana with his girlfriend's family for Christmas and maybe next year I'll be living and working overseas and will secretly almost be happy that D&J aren't having their Christmas party because at least I'll know I won't be missing it. There's really just no way of knowing. It's weird when the same week you turn 22 on the 22nd and you're in grad school not loving it and you're having a sit down dinner of Chinese food for the first time in months with your family and you find out your Christmas tradition has been 86ed and you're legitimately sad. Cheers to another part of my "bon vivant" experiences in the future involving being a bit more open to such changes. My mom is cute though, she said: "I'll cook anything you want on Christmas!" followed up by a quick "Well, maybe."
Changing holiday traditions is really tough. I totally hear you on this! I'm still grappling with some of the changes that keep happening as people in my family get married and have children of their own. I still feel like I should be "sitting at the kids table" so to speak.
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