Christmas
Christmas, Bobo. It’s a funny thing about Christmas. We’d spent seven with you. As they progressed and you showed less and less interest in presents and no real awareness of the holiday and what it meant, Christmas was changing for us. There was a period of slight melancholy in what society tells you to expect for a Christmas day and the time leading up to it. But as we got further into it with you, I think there was less of that. There was more just enjoying a day, like any other with you. Granted there was more candy and new toys. And you DID like a new toy. You just didn’t really get why it was wrapped up.
I think holidays like this taught us alot about family in general honestly. It’s really what you make of it. Christmas season was a time of year where work would shut down for a couple weeks and we’d just spend the time together. Sometimes we’d travel and sometimes we’d just stay home… and be. We were good at that then, and honestly, we’re good at that now. That had become my real excitement around Christmas, is the time I’d get to spend with you and everyone close to us. It wasn’t about the “Christmas-y” stuff. It was just about the time. And that’s something that was in short supply, it turns out.
During this Christmas, I found myself going back through the Christmas periods in the last 7 years and thinking of the things you’d do. Once the tree was up, you’d rob the ornaments off of it, paying special attention to any candy canes that weren’t placed above your reach. We have a Christmas diorama thing from the old school “Frosty the Snowman” stop motion cartoon. We’d wind it up and it plays the Frosty song and then there’s a Christmas Tree that spins around. You broke that tree off quick. You would carry that thing around with you and you’d sometimes hand it to me to fix. And sometimes to wind it up. It would be a little trial and error to find out what you wanted me to do exactly, but we’d muddle through.
I’ve never been a huge Christmas light guy, but I found myself trying new things every year so I could bring you out to check it out. You liked it. I wouldn’t say you were super enthusiastic, but you certainly checked out my handiwork and could appreciate a good light show.
I am realizing that while Christmas is “thing” in this society, for us, it was just another period of time to spend together. To muddle through the day to day ups and downs that went along with us being together. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. And to this day, this period of time every year is still just “time with Bobo.” For us, it could have been any week or day of the year, it didn’t have to be “Christmas”.