All my life, the Christmas season has been spent with my family. Together, we would decorate, cook, listen to music and celebrate the coming holiday. But being a freshman in college has gone to show how different everything is in my life now. Instead of spending my Christmas season with my family, this year I’m spending it in the library studying for finals at a campus that is two hours away from home. And being here makes me think of all the things I’m missing out on.
1. Getting the Tree
That picture we keep in our heads all year of a happy family heading to the tree farm to pick out the perfect tree and bring it home to decorate for the holiday is simply a falsity. The truth is, getting the Christmas tree is seldom a perfect event. It’s riddled with my sisters complaining about the cold, my brother trying to rush everyone so he can get on with his day, my mom rejects any option my dad offers because “there’s a gaping hole in the back.” In fact, by the time we get a fresh tree tied to the top of our car, someone has probably cried. Nevertheless, getting the tree is something I look forward to every year. It may not be a fairy tale event, but it’s fun all the same. There’s also the fact that I usually have a knack for picking out the tree.
2. Decorating the Tree
Once said tree has been lugged through the garage door, trimmed, and jammed into its tree stand, the decorating begins. Or rather, the stringing of the lights which is left the mom and dad, since this is the most difficult part. As they do this, us kids stand idly by, ornaments in hand, anxious to hand them on the branches. And once the lights go on, we usually begin with the decorating and get bored soon enough, leaving the tree half decorated for days on end. But nonetheless, there’s nothing like the hum of Christmas music and the smell of pine as you prick your fingers on a seven-foot-tall tree.
3. Decorating the House
Decorating the house reminds me of
the Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, in
the struggle that follows. One by one, the strings of lights are clipped to the
gutter as dad balances on the ladder and I or my brother spots him. However,
this is after the lights have been laid out on the driveway to check they’re
working, and after one of the siblings accidentally steps on one and shatters a
blub. After we purchase another strand because an entire one wouldn’t light up.
Then they go on the gutter, garlands wrap the pillars on the porch and lights
around them. All the while, Mom is inside with the candles, knickknacks and stockings struggling the keep the place clean and presentable.
4. Baking
Every year, my church holds a bake sale. The idea is wonderful, an abundance of various sorts of cookies piled into a box to bring home with Christmas music in the background. It’s possibly one of the things I look forward to most at church. Until, I joined youth group and had to actually bake the cookies. Let me tell you, baking four dozen non chocolate chip cookies the nine o’clock the night before the bake sale while I had school the next morning was no laughing matter. But nevertheless, I find myself missing it as I sit in my dorm with only Oreos and no kitchen to make fancy Christmas cookies in. But most of all I miss the nights lead up to Christmas where my sisters and would form an assembly line to make an endless supply of pretzel kisses to distribute out to friends, family and to keep for ourselves. I miss the sore feeling my fingers would get after peeling hundreds of candy kisses and the stress of waiting for the oven to beep and only having minutes to stick M&Ms into the softened chocolate before it hardened.
5. Christmas Shopping
People always say Christmas isn’t about the presents, and I have come to know this to be true. However, the feeling of giving a gift is something entirely different. I just love shopping up and down the plazas, malls, and decorated strip malls with my mom to find the perfect gifts for my parents, sisters, brother and friends. There’s nothing that’ll get me in the mood more than Christmas lights and music filling the square of fancy stores filled with possible presents. Then bringing those gifts home, sneaking them through the door when no one is looking and wrapping them quietly in my room imagining the look on each person’s face as they look at what I got them. Just thinking about it makes me warm inside. But being a broke college student away from home makes even doing this difficult. It makes me only wish I appreciated it more before.
Altogether, I knew things would change when I went to school, even the Christmas season. It’s hard letting these things go but I know I’ll be able to enjoy some of them the few days I’ll be home before Christmas. There’s really no point in wallowing because there are many new ways I can celebrate the holidays here at school, and I’ll just make my own new traditions.
