I stared into the tote filled with red and green. Our beautiful Christmas decorations. The site made me sad and a little nauseous. All I could think about was how tired I was and how this Christmas was just a glimmer of former years. My husband entered the room took one look at my face and said, “You don’t really want to do this either. Do you?” NO I didn’t. It wasn’t that I felt there was nothing to celebrate or that I was in Bah Humbug mode. It was I was tired to the bone, 2020 being such a strange year. I was tired of pretending that everything was normal. I didn’t want to pretend that Christmas was magically going to be normal.

What followed was a discussion that maybe should have been happening every year. What of our Christmas traditions did each of us need for it to be Christmas? What did we want to do this year? What didn’t we want to do this year? We discovered that we wanted to celebrate the season, not skipping Christmas. We just needed it to look very different this year. We wanted to stay home and stay safe.

Here’s what we came up with. No Christmas decorations, inside or out. After Christmas we always put up our snowman collection and create a winter wonderland of our living room. So that is what we did December 5th. We did decide to include a small “Charlie Brown” type tree with white lights no ornaments. On December 6th we gave each other the Christmas gifts we had already bought in honor of St. Nicolas Day. I love driving around to see the Christmas lights. The plan is to grab a hamburger and set out to see the lights on the 12th. Pete wanted to cook our traditional Christmas dinner, but didn’t like the idea of that empty table on Christmas Day. Our 2020 plan is to take Monday the 21st off and have our traditional ham dinner to celebrate the Winter Solstice! With a new table setting for the day. This family would never give up our tradition of cooking hot dogs in the fireplace on Christmas Eve that will remain this year even though it will be just the two of us. Christmas Day? Sleeping late, having a Christmas movie marathon, and spaghetti for dinner.

We are both very happy about this Christmas season plan. Peaceful and restful. I wonder if there were other years that should have been done differently, but we just kept plugging away on the same old Christmas train. I don’t know what Christmas future will look like, but for this one I think small and simple is what we needed.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! May you do it your way!