Well, Another Christmas come and gone. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it was everything you wanted it to be. In our family we celebrate Christmas. This year was a little different. Usually we have Christmas Eve at our house with Bob’s family and Christmas Day with my family. The kids are split between the two days because of obligations to their spouses families. It works for us.
When I was a kid, I remember reading the Christmas cards that we got. It was a huge thing then. My Mom had a huge list that she sent cards to, and received cards from. I’ve never been able to keep up with sending cards. I love getting them. I used to be that bad person that sent them to the people I got a card from, after I received theirs. Now I just don’t do it. In my defense, I get busy at work and home and…well I guess I get lazy about it. I didn’t say it was a good defense…
Anyway, I started seeing Merry Xmas on the cards and I asked my Mom what that meant. She explained to me that it was short for Christmas. I was not raised in a real religious home, but I knew the meaning of Christmas and this enraged me. I was pretty young, young enough that I didn’t know how Xmas could be an abbreviation for Christmas, but old enough to be furious about it. I raged about how the least we could do is write the whole word. How can anyone abbreviate the Christ from Christmas. My poor Mom just listened and agreed with me. I bet if she ever wrote Xmas before, she never did it again after that. I still feel this way. Christmas is one word that needs to be complete. I’m a purist in some things.
Well, this Christmas we had 8 of us for dinner on Christmas Day. As everyone started to arrive we had all the greeting and hugging. Our oldest grandson, almost 24 and his twin brothers, nearing 21 were here and I am so thankful to still have them be a part of our festivities. As they walked in the door one of the boys said “Merry Xmas Grama”! I was shocked and kind of frozen in place for a couple seconds. It must have shown on my face because he quickly came over hugged me and said “I mean Merry Christmas Grama”!
I guess I still feel pretty adamant about not abbreviating the reason for the season. It was pretty funny how quickly he changed his tune. Some things just need to stay important.
What are you adamant about keeping pure in your holidays? Did you have a wonderful season?
Retirizing 