Last Christmas, 2018, was the first one I spent at home since my husband passed away in February of 2015. Since his death, my boys and I have done two Disney Cruises and spent Christmas in Oklahoma with family. Holidays are tough when you’ve lost a loved one and I just wasn’t ready to be home without him. But last year, I felt we were ready to go back to our old traditions….staying in pajamas all day, eating pancakes and smoked Gouda cheese for breakfast, seeing a movie, and enjoying Christmas ham for dinner. It was great getting back to old traditions, different, but still great.
We did have a moment of life imitating art….our dog, Apollo, ate the entire ham. Yes, much like from the movie, A Christmas Story! And it gets better….
We were getting ready to leave the house and I noticed a red plastic lid on the floor. I had to really think of where and why it was out and then I realized I had put the ham in a container and that was the lid. I found the empty container that once had a spiral cut honey ham in it. No ham, no honey…..nothing. Apollo was sitting there staring at me and I knew immediately that he attacked and devoured the ham. I didn’t know what we would eat for dinner, more pancakes? We left the house to see a movie and when we walked out of the movie theater the Chinese restaurant next door was open. We had to wait for a table and began to notice that other guests were wearing Christmas pajamas and enjoying the atmosphere. Thirty minutes later we were seated by a table that had a giant platter with a flame in the middle. Well, my three boys were very interested in what the fire meal was and that was their first time to order a pu pu platter. You can only imagine the conversation that followed once they found out the name of the meal. Now this Christmas 2019, my boys are looking forward to seeing the final Star Wars film and then having dinner at the local Chinese restaurant. They have decided it is our new tradition and to be honest, I love it. It’s fun and I don’t have to cook or clean up the kitchen (Merry Christmas to me!)
I love sharing old traditions with my boys, but when you get to create a new one, it’s magical, especially when they talk about how they can’t wait to order a pu pu platter for Christmas dinner. I hope you continue your traditions and create new ones. You never know, a moment of chaos can turn into an amazing experience and a funny story.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
