Another Thanksgiving is in the books and in the blink of an eye, Christmas will be over, too.
I remember when I was a child the countdown to Christmas felt painfully slow – made even more agonizing by mother’s Christmas calendar, which charted my behavior. On good days, I received a candy cane sticker. On bad days, nothing. She promised to send the record to Santa Claus.
Still, Christmas morning was always worth the wait: the presents, the pancakes, the sometimes-snowy walk in the nearby nature preserve.
But now, as an adult, I often feel that Christmas Day itself, compared to its buildup (which seems to start earlier every season), is anticlimactic. I wondered if, perhaps, it was because our family traditions had staled. Instead of trying to make the holiday special, year after year, we focus on trying to recreate that same magic we remember from when we were children.
So, this holiday, my mother and I have decided to do things differently. There will be no pancakes in the morning, no ham at night and – most importantly – no candy cane stickers, or lack thereof.