[Logicaly]

I love the holidays! Although last year I came to the sad realization that the way they used to be, are forever changed, but that the amount of love that my family shares for each other has not. Plus, as I start a family of my own, and meet new people and invite them into the family, traditions are slowly changing.

Growing up my family literally did the exact same thing every year. I had a very large family, both on my moms side and my dads side. My dads side was always the most enjoyable for me, for reasons we won't get in to.

On Thanksgiving we would always drive down here to the Bay Area and stay with my aunt and uncle, we would have a huge feast at my aunt's house. The women would get up at 5am to start cooking every thing. At around 9am when the whole house was up, my aunt would make chocolate gravy and biscuits for everyone. The men would then sit around and watch football, and the kids and teenagers would be upstairs playing video games, watching movies, etc. It would be an all day event for us, snacks through out the day, and then a massive meal of turkey, ham, mashed taters, different kinds of gravy, waldorf salad, regular salad, fruit salad, corn, sweet taters, and the list goes on and this doesn't even include at least 5 different pies for dessert. Before dinner, we would always form a circle around the table and hold hands and my grandfather would lead us in saying grace.

Then for Christmas, we would have Christmas Eve at our own house, and we would always open just 1 present after dinner that night, just to tie us over till morning. Then we would go to bed, and wait for Santa to come. Around 4am my sister always wakes me up, and I send her to grab our stockings out of the livingroom and bring them to me in my bedroom. We would go through them, see what we got, and then repack them so that we wouldn't get caught, even though dad always knew what we where doing. Then her and I would go back to sleep in my room for an hour or two until it was okay to wake our parents up. I love opening presents, but what I love even more, is seeing everyone's reaction to what I got them. I love buying stuff for people, it brings me a lot of joy. Then we would pack up all that we want to bring with us, and make the drive up to the Bay Area to spend it with the rest of the family, and its a repeat of Thanksgiving, except with presents involved after dinner.

Now it is different. There is no gift exchange with the extended family. We have lost some family members of the years, and it has changed the dynamics of it all. We still get together and have a dinner for each holiday, however its on a much smaller scale now and while we all enjoy each others presence, it has a tone of sadness to it as well.

I however now have the pleasure of spending the holidays with my partner's family too. Her family has a big mexican dinner on Christmas Eve and that is something new for me, and I enjoy spending the time with her family. This year, I am hoping that since my dad and my sister and now my nephew will all be here, that perhaps we can mix everyone together Christmas morning at our home, but either way, this year I am getting to spend a lot of precious moments with family that I love.