First Christmas alone

I tried to be philosophical. I tried to be pragmatic. I tried to tell myself it is the next season of life and quoted Ecclesiates 3:1, 3b and 6a “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven … a time to break down, a time to build up; … a time to gain, a time to lose.”
I empathized with the moment captured in a Norman Rockwell painting where the son eagerly sits on his suitcase waiting for the train. Behind him his father and faithful dog also wait – with glum faces. While he counts down to his first venture into life, they glumly wait for the loneliness to descend.
Simply stated, I did not like having my first Christmas without any of our five married children or the 10 grandchildren around. And it doesn’t matter, that before you read this we will have come together, opened gifts, eaten too much food and tripped over each other in my daughter’s first home. Distance, work schedules and a middle of the week Christmas dictated gathering at her house the weekend after Christmas.
Practical, pragmatic, philosophical … yep, that is me on the outside, but I am here to tell you that underneath it all, if I had my druthers, I would druther have had them all invade on us, mess up the bathrooms, mix up the toy cupboard, eat up my food and strew Christmas wrapping paper all over the house. Since that did not happen, my husband and I stayed quietly at home with our engaged son, ate a simplified Christmas breakfast and opened a token gift apiece. The rest of the gifts waited for our family gathering.
Okay, I can wait. I am after all supposed to be a grown-up. Along time ago, I realized that Christmas comes the day you decide it does. After listening to others bemoan trying to please all the families, I decided I would not insist that they cram two or three holiday meals in one hectic day of driving, visiting and opening presents.
I refuse to whine at my children that they HAVE to come and spend Christmas with us. Life is too short for guilt trips when I can make an unwanted attitude adjustment as my mother (with five married children and 17 grandchildren) did before her first Christmas with just my dad. “It is all part of a parent’s growing up,” she said. This from a woman who had enjoyed her family and the whole gift giving process.
I won’t say I didn’t miss having the kids here on the 25th. It was a very quiet day – except for my husband calling up family and friends to wish them a Merry Christmas and tell them that he had officially entered another season in his life: He retired this past month,
While he chatted, I sewed last minute Christmas gifts, baked a bit and read half of a lengthy novel. I did not stretch the table to accommodate all of the Christmas dishes, company and china; I stepped back and let my daughter initiate her Christmas china. I did not spend all day in the kitchen; I saw the fruits of insisting that each of my school aged child make at least one dish each holiday rather waiting for me to do it all. Even my single son helped by preparing the potatoes and gravy for the delayed Christmas dinner.
The good thing about this season of life is that, however reluctantly, I can step back, let go of doing it all and watch my grown children establish their own homes, holidays, traditions and adult relationships with each other.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)