Every year I pretty much go through the lull of December and Christmas feeling just like the last.

I don’t have anything against the holiday, in fact, it’s the second time in a year besides Thanksgiving where I actually get to be social, mostly thanks to Ashlynn’s insane family gatherings. It reminds me largely of the kind of family gatherings we had when I was a kid, where pretty much every Christmas was either spent in LaPorte with my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, where the party was always centered at my Aunt Kim’s, lot of food and fun, got to play with their NES and that terrible Pebble Beach golf game (but Uncle Rod had RC-Pro AM, Pitfall, and MC Kids, so all was not lost) and we all had a good time. Other years we went to my other grandparents house in Fort Wayne to see them, my uncle, and cousins. Once again, another NES to play but with some pretty awesome games like Burger Time, Ice Hockey, Baseball, and such. My cousin also kept her SNES there with Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Food and fun as always, lot of crazy moments. Also those evenings where my grandfather would make us ice cream to eat before we went to bed. It’s one of the few clear memories I have before he passed away, that and his love of watching golf on TV all day.

When we moved to Connecticut between 1999-2000, the whole world changed. We tried to go back to Indiana for Christmas for the first few years, but it didn’t matter if you drove or flew through Pennsylvania, the snowstorms grounded us one year and nearly killed us the next. After that, we gave up trying to go back for a couple years. Soon after my great-grandfather passed away as I was driving to Otakon 2003. My other, either before or after, can’t remember. I was able to see one of my great-grandmothers in 2005 before she passed away a year or two later, and the last shortly after that. I haven’t been to a funeral for a family member since my grandfather on my father’s side in the late 90’s (97 I think?) because I couldn’t make it out for any of them, though really since they were my mother’s grandparents, it was more important she went before us. I’m not particularly looking forward to my remaining three grandparents and step-grandmother when that time comes.

That’s the one thing about living so far up here, the only immediate family I have is my parents and sister, all three living in different corners of the state. My mother recently moved to Florida with her new husband, leaving just my father and sister, whom I usually only see during the holidays and occasionally a few other times a year. When I was dating my ex, it was largely the same case, her immediate family lived in the state but everyone else in Ohio and California. I ended up visiting both at least once, which was kinda cool because I’d never been to California before, and it was certainly a lot of fun at the time. She was fortunate enough to meet my great-grandmother in our last trip to Indiana for the holidays in 2005. When I started dating Ashlynn, the warning that I got going to her family’s house for the holidays was that they were “weird and dysfunctional” like I was going to be scared or something. At the time, she hadn’t met any of my family, so I thought it was pretty funny given how she hadn’t been to any of our gatherings in the past. The first Christmas at her aunt’s was pretty interesting, but not completely crazy. I’m only glad they’re a pretty accepting bunch given the fact I am highly introverted and anti-social. Eventually when she met my family, I think she understood what I was saying when I said we’re just as dysfunctional and weird as well, we just haven’t been able to do it proper in 10 years. After all, we’re from the midwest, drinking and dumb shit is what we’re good for.

Christmas is one of those times of year where I enjoy the company it brings but when you live in a suburban/urban-esque area, you dislike the hustle and traffic it brings. Everyone is out trying to get gifts and prepare for parties, and it gets pretty annoying. I enjoy the fact that I have someplace to go each year to enjoy what this holiday intends me to do, but I guess I just don’t get into it as much as I did when I was a kid, when it was about food, presents, fun, and family. Perhaps some day, when I have a family of my own, that feeling will return, and I certainly hope it does, because I intend to duplicate some of the finest traditions of Christmas I had as a kid, including trains around the tree (model or Brio), storing potential gifts in places so my kids will hunt around to find what they are getting, and purposely not waking up until late so they can sit in front of the tree speculating on what they got for hours. I’ll also have to at least pretend I am Santa for as long as possible by correcting the one mistake my parents made when I was a kid, the garage door probably should not go off at 2am in the morning.