Happy Holidays friends! Our holiday was definitely different this year – like I’m sure everyone’s has been. Let me start by saying that what we do isn’t religion based – no one in this house is religious but we celebrate tradition, family and just being together. My mom’s side of the family celebrates Christmas and my dad’s side of the family celebrates Hanukkah – so we’ve always done a little of everything.
When my son was younger I used to be REALLY into celebrating. I had all these high expectations that I would put on myself to try and make everything perfect. The tree, stockings, baking, gifts, music, menorah and magic. Then my son turned 18 and moved away for a few years to live with his dad and I didn’t have that drive to go as all out anymore. I haven’t put up a tree in years. I even bought a small table top one instead of the big full one, but even that hasn’t been pulled out. He’s since moved home but he doesn’t care either way if I go all out or not anymore.
So we’re continuing with the quiet and laid back holiday. Talk about no stress or pressure, which is just what I need when dealing with my mental health issues. We’re doing zero decorations or a tree. No gifts at all – we’re all adults and just get what we want/need as we need it. No stockings, which I used to go all out for and made sure anyone that was going to be over for Christmas morning had one.
We continued with the family hang out – to the extent that we can while in COVID lockdown. Instead of seeing family that doesn’t live in the house, we’re celebrating with only us in the house and my mom will be joining us. She lives alone and isn’t going out at all and we’re not going out at all anywhere so we feel comfortable having just her over. It will be the first time we’re having her over since this pandemic started. Our plan is all about food, drink, music and hanging out.
We have food traditions of making meatballs in the crockpot on Christmas eve (and it used to be a family/friend drop in to join us for them) and this way no one is stuck in the kitchen and everyone can spend the time together. Oh and drinks too – rum with either eggnog or coke. We usually have Christmas movies on TV in the background, play games and just have fun.
Christmas morning we do brown sugar/nutmeg sauce over biscuits and either a egg type breakfast or some years my dad has just gone out to grab Mc Muffins. On years where we opened stockings/gifts, we play the Raffi Christmas album that we used to listen to when me and my brother were kids and it’s stuck for when my son was a kid and now we just continue with it anyways and played it while we had breakfast with the fireplace log channel on the TV. We also splurged on a roast beef dinner with all the fixings – we all pitched in to get it, seeing as we didn’t spend any money on gifts. 
I did do some of my holiday baking – following with our whole food traditions. Ginger cookies, gingerbread trees, snowball cookies, lemon tarts and even though we said no gifts – I decided to hop on the craze this year of making hot chocolate bombs. I ordered a silicone mold and picked up all the things needed to put them together – they will be a late ‘gift’ though as I haven’t yet actually made them. Hopefully I’ll find the energy to do them for us to have them for New Years.
Other than the holidays, the only other notable thing this last week was cutting my own hair. I have a habit of getting my hair cut approximately once every 18 months. I get it cut to just below my shoulders – as short as I can go with still being able to put it up in a clip. Then I just let it grow and grow until it goes to almost my waist and starts to bother me by getting caught under my arms as I roll over in bed. When I was in my teens/early 20’s, I used to cut my own hair. The last 15 years I’ve gone to a hairdresser – one of those cheap super-cuts type places to just cut it down. I’m glad I had that past experience of doing it myself with being in lockdown and not able to go anywhere to get it done. I think I did a pretty good job! Hopefully the back looks decent enough – but I keep it up in a clip when I go out anyways, so no one will see if it looks terribly uneven anyways.
That’s about it around here this week. I know I didn’t talk too much on my mental state this week – I’m feeling emotional and pretty down, but trying to just keep chugging along as always. I’ll write up a bit more next week on these feeling. I hope you all had a great holiday in whichever way you celebrated.
Until next time, xoxo