I can’t believe another holiday season has come and gone so fast, where does all the time go? Although I had a lovely five days in Seattle with my father and sister it sure seemed to go by in a flash. This Christmas Eve, as I prepared to for bed, I had a rather strange experience, unlike any I have ever had before. I was struck with a feeling that suddenly had me wondering if 32, is too old to still be filling the role of “the child” on Christmas.
This Christmas Eve, my father had a party which had family friends and relatives alike all joined together for good food and folly. After a lovely evening I retired to the room that was prepared for me to stay in over the holiday in my fathers house. As I laid down in the giant, fluffy bed, my stepmother assembled for me, I found myself staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, feeling….. funny. Suddenly the place that I had spent so many Christmas Eve’s before felt strange to me, almost as though I had fallen into a “Christmas Eve Limbo.” Perhaps it’s the impending New Year or my 33rd birthday I will be celebrating this January, but for the first time in my life I found myself questioning my place in my world and my place in my family.
As children, Christmas Eve is filled with the electric, happy, excitement, that comes with anticipating the arrival of Santa and the opening of the presents sure to be under the tree the next morning. As you get older, Christmas becomes more about spending time with family and then later in life creating that Christmas magic for your own children, or so I hear. As I laid in bed on Christmas Eve, listening as one by one my father, step mother, step-sister and brother headed to bed as well, the silence that followed made me squirm under my covers. I could not explain why, but I started to question if perhaps, I was too old to be tucked up in my bed, in my polar bear pajamas, waiting to open presents in the morning rather then preparing Christmas for a family of my own.
