Recipe for Christmas

I

 don’t consider myself a person bound by tradition. 

Usually, I’m all about change, encouraging people to change and looking for ways to change myself. I generally think that new experiences make life both more memorable and meaningful. 

Except for Christmas. I want Christmas to remain exactly the same. 

Nearly every year of my life, Christmas Eve has been celebrated with my father and his family. My dad has only one sister, my Auntie Jo, so this has been relatively easy. My father and his sister each had two children, and I am the oldest, so the logistics remained simple. 

But this year, logistics finally caught up with us and I will celebrate with my parents and my sister and her family. Auntie Jo’s family will have their own celebration, and at my age, I should be incredibly grateful that the tradition held as long as it did. 

Instead, I’m a little sad.

If you read advice columns at this time of year (and I do), you know they are filled with families feuding over where to spend Christmas. The more distant and strained the family relations are, the more fiercely they fight. I read these columns every year and tut-tut along with the advice giver and yet I take for granted that my Christmas will remain unchanged. I like to imagine that—while everything in the world changes—Christmas somehow magically remains the same.