Preparing for Christmas (From Hereford Times)

Preparing for Christmas

4:28pm Sunday 10th December 2006

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Does anyone but me miss the magic of Christmas? Once the kiddies are grown and cease believing in Father Christmas,the fun goes out of surprising them because it seems their expectations grow beyond our budgets.

I just got off the phone with my mother in Florida and she tells me that my nephew who is only 6 and still believes in Santa Claus wants some sort of high tech computer games system that costs in the range of $500 U.S. money.

Gosh, that just boggles my mind. I doubt when my daughters were growing up that the entire Christmas budget was more then $500 including our Christmas dinner and the loads and loads of cookies I used to bake to give away. By the way, he is going to be in for a big disappointment Christmas morning because no one in his family can afford that kind of gift even if they all went together to buy it.

Something else that bothers me is the lack of respect for family and traditions. The new generation doesn't seem to recognise old traditions. There was an article in the paper the other day about how 1 in 4 Britains will celebrate the holidays with friends or by traveling abroad but most assuredly not with family.

I miss that part of the old days. My family would gather at my aunt's house (only because she had the biggest home). With her 5 children, my sister's and I and one more cousin there would be 9 of us kids racing about, opening pressies and in general wreaking havoc. My grandparents would be there too so with all the aunts and uncles that meant 8 adults in all. What a feast we would have! Lucky us, we got to sit at the kids table away from prying adult eyes and we'd have a ball tormenting each other, bragging about what Santa had brought to us and enjoying the food so lovingly prepared. You can bet we cleaned our plates too because there was no pudding for us if we didn't eat the veg. Traditionally we had pumpkin pie and pecan pie. . .yum. I am getting hungry reading this. Sadly, out of those 8 adults, only one is still living and the cousins are scattered in many different cities and states, too far to travel easily.

Later on as an adult when some of the aunts and uncles had passed on and families split apart, we started the tradition of trying to find someone every year that didn't have somewhere else to go or family to be with. One year we had missionaries come to us right off of a hospital ship they served on fresh from Africa. Another year, we had some single people from church who didn't have family nearby. I am happy to say that today, my oldest daughter who is settled and married continues to take in 'strays' and give them some company on Christmas Day. In the end, it's not the pressies or the great meals, it's the 'magic' of sharing the holiday with other's less fortunate.

Here's wishing you all a very Happy Christmas!