Okay, so, we've already done the whole, "Best Present Ever" post and we've gotten plenty nostalgic already, so we were thinking that it might be fun to do an after-Christmas post, as opposed to posting something...um...yesterday.
And, when I say "we," I mean, "me," mostly because Nathaniel's been traveling for the holidays and I was put in charge of things for the better part of the week. So you should all just be happy that the blog is still standing, and that I haven't managed to offend the Internet.
Yet.
So, anyway, here we are. The day after Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring. Because they all ate and/or drank way too much of everything yesterday.
When I was a kid, the day after was always a pretty big downer, having absolutely no hope in competing with its predecessor. I mean, toys and Santa and food and parades. C'mon. The day after Christmas is like being Frank Stallone.
But December 26 does have its positives. For example, when I was still in that Yay! Toys (that don't need to be kept in their boxes for fear of their value decreasing)! mode, the next day was the perfect time to check out everything that I didn't get around to playing with the day before.
In our family, the kids would go downstairs for presents at around 7:00, and then a whole truckload of people would start coming over sometime before noon. Which meant that there was precious little time to open everything up and play with things before showers had to be taken, and sweaters needed to be put on.
So there was always that toy that got neglected on Christmas Day, only to be found the next morning, still under the tree where Santa left it.
My brother and I were very much into baseball cards as kids, and on Christmas Day we'd usually get a couple of boxes filled with baseball card packs. We'd open them immediately, of course, but we would wait for the following day to have our "draft" where we chose what cards each of us would keep.
That was always fun, though my little bro always managed to get first pick.
And then there was that one Christmas vacation when I was in elementary school when it snowed on Christmas night. So, in addition to having new toys to play with...we were able to go out and play with them in the snow.
How cool was that?
More recently, though, December 26 has started meaning other things--like sleeping late and not having to go to work. Which, for now, sounds like a good plan.
--
For me (Nathaniel, the other guy who writes this blog), the day after Christmas, or even two days after Christmas, was (and still is) the time for a Second Christmas with the extended family.
There's a progressive shift in focus from the religious aspects of the season (Christmas Eve in the church choir) to the gift-giving and gift using (Christmas Day) to pure family time at Second Christmas, where the gifts are often more of a nicety (and a second shot at that one thing Santa missed) than the big thing to look forward to.
Faith, family, and gift-giving are all interwoven throughout my holiday season, so even if I go materialistic on you and talk about gifts gifts gifts at any point, I'm seldom giving you the full picture. So many different parts of Christmas are enjoyable and important to me; presents are the easiest part to quantify and describe. Second Christmas has always been primarily about getting together with aunts, uncles, and grandparents--judging from the strange gifts we've gotten each other in the past, sometimes I think it's better that we get to spend so much time getting to know each other better.
Before, during, or after the Big Day--it's all my favorite time of year. Hope there's something special about it for you, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment