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Thread: The Holidays

  1. #11
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Our holidays are low key since the kids left. I only buy gifts for a few friends and my sister. Now things might be different if I had grandchildren). Some years we invite a bunch of people for dinner and sometimes it’s only family. Of our 5 kids only one is local and they often work so sometimes it’s movie and a dinner out. I just decide every year what I feel like doing.

  2. #12
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I actually think you're right. I LOVE seeing all the lights in the neighborhood in December and even early January. It feels like just what you said.. maybe we can make this dreary time a little brighter. When I was in NJ I kept my lights on outside until the 2nd or 3rd week in January. Here, alone in this summer community, there's no one to appreciate the lights, but my neighbor has a beautiful evergreen tree that would be perfect for Christmas lights and next year I may ask him for permission to light it up.

    I don't necessarily think it's a dark social experiment. I think it maybe emerged organically throughout the years when there were no electric lights and people really were dreary with the darkness. Christmas/Pagan lights/celebration might have been the first treatment for SAD as it were.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

  3. #13
    Geila
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    Haha! No, it doesn't feel like The Shining, but I also don't spend the holidays with family. I stopped travelling to family for the holidays about 12 years ago. A couple of times I have felt a little lonely, but for the most part it has worked out really well. We do whatever we want.

    My favorite part this time of year is the rain. We finally got our first real soaking this week.

  4. #14
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    Actually this time of year always makes me sad. As a child there were drunken fights and I think it spoiled Christmas for me forever. We have no family near which is ok. We are leaving in a few days for Belize and right after Christmas going to Texas for a few months (first time ever gone so long). So, there is something to look forward to. I am already freezing and look forward to warm!!!

  5. #15
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Frugal, that’s sad. My parents always made holidays special and I did the same for my kids especially Xmas. Enjoy your vacations.

  6. #16
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    I appreciate that, starting toward the end of December -- just another four weeks from now -- the days will start getting longer. The environment here goes from Technicolor in late September or early October to an unappealing brown-grey monochrome by January. All of it -- the sky, the visible parts of the earth, even some of the snow if we don't get a couple of inches to cover the old stuff after a while. It helps to have all the lights and the special foods and all of The Holidays to keep me distracted until the days get longer.

    I think that's just human nature and why collective-we were so eager to adopt ceremonies and practices that broke the drudgery. Now, how messed up it's become that every business seems to need a Black Friday special deal and how much of the human activity of this season ends up in a landfill every year; that I can do without. But I think The Holidays are what we make of it, with our own traditions and beliefs. Us simple folk should be especially good at adopting what works for us and ignoring what doesn't.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  7. #17
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    I hate that stores are open on holidays. It used to be you planned ahead because not even a grocery store was open. People need to spend time with their families. Living in Nevada means 24 hour everything because the economy depends on the money. Many Asian people that don’t celebrate the holidays come here for a visit. It’s a very busy time. People that work in casinos understand that. But stores don’t need to be open and people can wait until Friday. We don’t partake in any of that nonsense. Today we are going to a friend’s for leftovers. It’s become a tradition.

  8. #18
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    The only holiday I really do much is thanksgiving, and still it's been too hard.
    Trees don't grow on money

  9. #19
    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    I didn't even really do much of the work, and I still think it's too hard, lol, painful to watch. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly thankful for the opportunity to eat cold mashed potatoes with the people I love, but all the time and effort that goes into a turkey dinner - turkey - of all the mediocre protein sources - I think there is something wrong with this picture. I am going to start plotting for T day at a nice restaurant in 2020 and I will cheerfully pay for it out of my allowance.

  10. #20
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    I am grateful and fortunate that I have such a wonderful family and extended family that makes any possible negative aspects of holidays seem trivial. We get together and have fun and talk and share. The time and effort is definitely worth it for us and I, personally, treasure these times.
    To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
    Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
    In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown

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