Christmas is always a somewhat drawn-out event with us.
This is not because we’re the sorts of people who live, sleep, eat, and worship Christmas. To be honest, most years it kind of sneaks up on us a bit and the only one among us who has any real ability to think about the holiday before Thanksgiving is put away is Kim. Rather it’s because the way we do the holiday involves several stages of celebration.
There’s the preparatory stage. This means trying to get the house at least somewhat decorated, wrapping up our various semesters (some of which didn’t end until the 19th this year), and dealing with other holidays and celebrations that we manage to insert into this already busy time because that’s just how we roll.
Then there’s the Gregorian Christmas, which we celebrate with my side of the family in December. This changes location from one year to the next. Some years there are full-sized gatherings where pretty much everyone I see more than once a decade ends up in Tennessee to eat, talk, and enjoy each other’s company for a few days. And some years my cousins head out to their various in-laws and it’s just us and my brother’s family, which is a bit quieter and just as lovely.
We wrap up with the Julian Christmas in January, gathering together with Kim’s side of the family here in Wisconsin for another festive day of food, conversation, and good company.
2025 has been a long and exhausting year, sometimes for reasons that were joyful and memorable such as our various travels and visits from friends, and sometimes for reasons that were much more stressful, such as the unusually numerous crises of our semesters and the entire news cycle for the calendar year. Add all that together and for me at least the holiday snuck up more than usual. One day I’m getting ready to give my midterm exams for my classes and looking forward to Halloween and the next day – BAM! – it’s finals week and I’ve reached the point where I either buy Christmas gifts locally or give out IOUs.
I didn’t get much decorating done this year, is what I’m saying. The outside lights remain in their boxes, and so be it. We did get the trees up, though.
We were properly supervised the whole time, of course.
This is not because we’re the sorts of people who live, sleep, eat, and worship Christmas. To be honest, most years it kind of sneaks up on us a bit and the only one among us who has any real ability to think about the holiday before Thanksgiving is put away is Kim. Rather it’s because the way we do the holiday involves several stages of celebration.
There’s the preparatory stage. This means trying to get the house at least somewhat decorated, wrapping up our various semesters (some of which didn’t end until the 19th this year), and dealing with other holidays and celebrations that we manage to insert into this already busy time because that’s just how we roll.
Then there’s the Gregorian Christmas, which we celebrate with my side of the family in December. This changes location from one year to the next. Some years there are full-sized gatherings where pretty much everyone I see more than once a decade ends up in Tennessee to eat, talk, and enjoy each other’s company for a few days. And some years my cousins head out to their various in-laws and it’s just us and my brother’s family, which is a bit quieter and just as lovely.
We wrap up with the Julian Christmas in January, gathering together with Kim’s side of the family here in Wisconsin for another festive day of food, conversation, and good company.
2025 has been a long and exhausting year, sometimes for reasons that were joyful and memorable such as our various travels and visits from friends, and sometimes for reasons that were much more stressful, such as the unusually numerous crises of our semesters and the entire news cycle for the calendar year. Add all that together and for me at least the holiday snuck up more than usual. One day I’m getting ready to give my midterm exams for my classes and looking forward to Halloween and the next day – BAM! – it’s finals week and I’ve reached the point where I either buy Christmas gifts locally or give out IOUs.
I didn’t get much decorating done this year, is what I’m saying. The outside lights remain in their boxes, and so be it. We did get the trees up, though.
We were properly supervised the whole time, of course.
We’ve graduated to having two Christmas trees these days. One is for all the normal ornaments that we’ve collected over the years, or at least as many as we can fit on the tree since we inherited a bunch from my mom that we still need to sort through, really. That one goes in the corner of the living room where we’ve put Christmas trees pretty much since 1996 when we moved in.
The other is for the travel ornaments that we’ve been collecting as mementos of going places and visiting people. Most of these are keychains, since they’re cheap, indestructible, and clearly labeled to let you know where you got them so they make wonderful story prompts. We added a pile of new ones this year – Oliver and Lauren know to bring back keychains for me when they travel places, so the tree represents all of our wanderings now – and there are enough of these to justify their own tree. This one goes in the dining room because, well, that’s where there’s space for it. Minimalist we are not.
I usually put the angel that my parents had on their tree on top, but this year I just looked at it and thought “that’s an incandescent bulb powered by sixty-year-old wiring and the rest of the tree is lit by LEDs that we leave on a lot and I don’t want to burn the place down,” so I put a hat on the tree instead. I thought it looked jaunty. It had been given to us by a friend who passed away this year, so there was that as well.
We have other events as well that get tossed in with the holiday, and this year we celebrated two of them before we left for Tennessee – both on the same day.
One was my birthday, which happens every year around this time.
The other was Shai’s successful defense of his dissertation. He’s been here in the US since Thanksgiving week, but he still needed to do his defense and he took care of that on the 19th via Zoom to New Zealand, where his committee was located. It went well and they accepted it without revisions which, if you understand the PhD process, is quite an achievement. Naturally a celebration was in order!
We took the time to take some group photos as well, since we don’t ordinarily get a chance to do that. It was a festive evening all around. Even the rabbit joined in.
And yes, the hat looks pretty jaunty on Miley too.
The next day, bright and early, we left for Tennessee.
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