Time to get festive

My Homemade Tree

Well, Christmas is almost here.  Even if you don't celebrate it as a religious holiday, it's a fact...December 25 is fast approaching.  We have an odd family.  I mean, all families are odd...it's just the nature of family!  But, this time of year is more 'the end of the year' than anything else.  All growing up, Christmas morning was about 30 minutes of 'fun': opening gifts, eating candy, yummy homemade breakfast of some sort; then, everybody got dressed and packed into the car for a 2 hour road trip to Detroit.  Already not fun, but throw in a little sister who gets car sick and now you're talkin' awesome family road trip!  And it's not like Michigan winters were fun to drive around in, and the suburbs of Detroit aren't really a fun destination for youngin's.

But it was Dad's family...the crazy Roman Catholic Polish family that passes 'the body of Christ' to everyone before dinner (Brother and I had never even had our first Communion!).  The family that loves and lives to fight.  Women in the kitchen chatting while the homemade sausage, potatoes, green beans, etc. cook; men in the living room arguing about anything and everything; and, the kids trying to figure out the newest board game grandma has found for us.  Most of my memories are from before my aunts and uncles started having kids...so it was basically me and my brother for 10 years.  Can you imagine being the only 2 kids in a room full of bickering adults on Christmas morning!!??  I ate a lot of snacks that day...but, that was true for most days, to be fair.
When I moved out on my own, I swore I would never travel anywhere on Christmas day.  And it eventually became one of the only 2 days Hubby and I had off together during any given year.  Things change of course. I go out on Christmas day now...to see a movie and get Chinese food.  Christmas Eve is family Christmas: the kids table only...no 'adults'.
Now, Hubby was raised Jewish.  He's not a practicing Jew, but he did have his bar Mitzvah...that was the last day his family went to temple, I guess.  He's not keen on Christmas due to it's being shoved in every one's face starting before Thanksgiving, these days; but, growing up, none of his friends were Jewish...he was always sad that he didn't get a tree to decorate.  He still likes to get a tree.
This year, though...it's unseasonably warm.  It is hard to get into any sort of Christmas spirit.  We decided against a tree.
BUT THEN...
I decided to have the girls over to my place for a little shindig.  I can't have a holiday party without a tree and decked halls!!  So I made a tree.  This is the second year I've done this and I gotta say, I really like it.  I still have to decorate it, but it's just beginnings of pines, growing in my driveway, that I've cut and put in a vessel full of rocks.  You could do this same thing by cutting some branches from any tree!  I really like the way it looks.  The last time I did this, I added some bittersweet branches and other fun stuff...this year, I just couldn't find anything else in the yard.  Must be all the wind we've had this year; everything has blown away.
Anyway, the girls and I used to do a cookie bake every year before Christmas, but each year we realize we aren't really enjoying the baking part as much.  So now we cut to the chase and just have cocktails and gab session.  This way the boys can come, too.  So that's tonight. 
Then after one more day off, my next scheduled day off will be Christmas day...I'm seriously considering wearing my p.j's to the movie that day!!