It’s that time of year again. Lots of bright and sparkly lights around.Time to decorate your house and tree. Time to hunt down the perfect gifts for your loved ones. Time to visit with family and friends. It sure can be a hectic time of year, and expensive. Everyone has different family traditions. I will explain how my holidays are, and truly will be, hectic this year. My craziness has already begun, with work holiday parties– my girlfriend’s work party was crazy as usual.
This past Saturday the craziness truly began. Well, I guess it really was the week before when my work holiday party was. It was fairly low key, but it was still a fun time and great to see everyone outside of the office. There were a few epic Giant Jenga games that were over 40 levels high. This past Saturday was my girlfriend’s work holiday party and they go all out. We were at her boss’ country club where there was an open bar from 7 PM through 12:30 AM. Do I even have to say that it got a little crazy? Well it did, but in a good way. They had some great food, a freshly made Chinese buffet at the country club. I definitely made mine way too spicy. This week, hopefully, won’t be as crazy, which will allow me to recover from the weekend.
This weekend, my girlfriend will be flying back to Michigan to be with her family for the holidays while I will remain here, in St. Louis,to be with mine, and take care of the dog. I know, I know, we should be spending this time together. We keep talking about starting to rotate Thanksgiving and Christmas for where we are: just can’t seem to start it. I have family that comes in town for those two holidays and I enjoy spending time with them and she doesn’t get to see her family that often, so she takes advantage of the holidays to go home to be with them.
My family’s tradition is that we do my immediate family’s Christmas on Christmas Eve. Both my brothers and their families and I go over to our parent’s house to have some great food and open presents. This is crazy, but actually is the calm before the storm. I’m not sure what food we’ll have this year,but there is no doubt that it’ll be very good. My Mom will make something amazing, as usual. We will have a great time, and my nieces and nephew will be entertaining as always. Oops,I just remembered that I still need to make my family’s version of Chex Mix! My Grandma had a great recipe and I now have the task to make it for the family. I know what I’ll be doing this afternoon now.
Time for the big day, Christmas. I will be doing my usual thing, making chicken wings for my Mom’s whole family Christmas party at, again, my parents’house. This has been a tradition as long as I’ve been alive! There will be at least forty people there, a little crazy. Again, it will be a great time, and great to get all of us together. There aren’t many occasions where it is possible for all of us, especially the cousins, to get together. We don’t exchange presents with the big family,though I believe the little kids get something. I can’t even begin to explain the shenanigans that go on this day. My parents have always put a Where’s Waldo ornament on the tree, so there will be hunting for him, possibly even a ransom letter for him, yes, that has happened. We are also a family that has an ornament that is a pickle, which is another thing to hunt for; this one stays on the tree though. Another odd tradition of my family is a Christmas Crocodile. I think that came from when my oldest brother gave a giant plastic crocodile to my parents as a gag gift and it now always comes out to guard the tree. We are a special (weird?) family.
Then its time for New Years. This year will be even more hectic for me. We are planning on having friends come in from Chicago and Kansas City to stay with us so we can go to a party. They will be coming in on Saturday. My girlfriend, thankfully, will be coming home on Friday. I thought about going up to Michigan after Christmas, but I would be way too stressed out about people coming and needing to get so much done to get the house ready for guests. I need to clean our 2nd and 3rd floors, install the vanity in our bathroom, finish mudding and re-paint the bathroom wall, make sure the bathtub has stopped leaking, and vacuum all the dust from dry walling. But New Year’swill be fun. It always is. I am just glad that our friends are coming to us, so we don’t have to drive home the next day. We usually go to Kansas City for New Years, so the next day is a bit of a struggle.
Well, that is my hectic holiday schedule. I’m sure you all have just as crazy times. I hope you have a crazy family like mine and have such fun traditions. Please share them in the comment section. You never know, other people might share the same traditions, or you might get ideas for cool new ones that you want to try. I hope you all have great holidays and let’s go see some houses.
Matt Wroughton Realtor 