Christmas

This Christmas is so strange for us this year. We’re not gathering with loved ones at home this year on Christmas Day.  We’re not gathering with loved ones at their homes this year. Instead, my husband, Jack, and I will be boarding an airplane around lunch time to fly to Orlando, Florida.

I grew up in Kissimmee and am rather fond of the area, even if I don’t really recognize it any longer. I can still get around, mainly because they haven’t changed the names of too many of the main roads. (Although, the neighborhood I lived in just before I moved to Tennessee looks as if aliens stole it. It looks nothing like it did in 1985!) At age 17, I worked at Walt Disney World. That was a dream come true and a whole other blog post.

I loved Disney. Because my father helped build the Magic Kingdom, I got to visit it before it opened on October 1, 1971. Because my mother-in-law worked for Disney when EPCOT opened, my ex-husband and I were there on opening day. After we moved in ’85, we never went back again.

Jack visited Disney once when he and his first wife and the boys were on vacation in Florida. They were staying with a friend who accompanied them. The day was stressful and filled with argument. Jack did not enjoy it.

Then came the ’90s when “good” Christians boycotted Disney because of their stance on some sensitive issues and we didn’t go as a family. Now, it’s 2009. My thoughts about boycotts are vastly different than they were in the ’90s. Thus, we will be visiting the Mouse House along with some other Central Florida attractions.

I plan to let my hair down and be a kid again — having just as much fun as I did when I was 16 and worked in front of Cinderella’s Castle. I plan to ooh and ahh at the fireworks and laugh and sing with the characters. I think Jack will have tons of fun, too — if nothing else, from watching me. I can be quite entertaining.

Oh, Christmas? No, we didn’t skip it. Our plans to be gone worked out perfectly with my mother’s plan for her knee-replacement surgery. Headed into surgery on the 14th caused us to gather our boys and their families at the house for a special evening on the 12th. Our grandsons had a blast opening gifts and we talked about all that the season means and what they mean to us.

Everyone else asks about what Christmas traditions people have that they continue — what about those new and strange things you might be doing? Tell me about it!

Related posts:

1. frustration
2. an unreceived gift