It was a very festive time of year with friends and family and we had such a wonderful seasonal routine that I loved.
We knew that moving to California, would provide some challenges around the holidays. No longer are we able to fly back for Thanksgiving since a month later, we have Christmas. We have to make choices as to which holiday we would miss. I know that from my standpoint, I can't miss a holiday home with my Mom and family, even though now a days there's only a handful of us that come back. Steven's the same why. It's tough missing a Christmas away from family.
Maybe when we're both rich, we can afford to go home both holidays.
Thanksgiving was our first taste of what the holidays would be like here, at least for now. We had a few offers to go to friends houses for dinner, but we decided that this first year we would just stay at home. Next year we can talk about who's house to visit. We headed to the local Von's Deli and picked up some already prepared turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and rolls. It took us 15 minutes to heat it up and the clean up even less. Although we missed the full day of cooking (don't miss the hours of cleanup), the dinner was good and we enjoyed just relaxing.
Still, it wasn't quite the same. Luckily, we had my husbands parents and best friend in the weekend before, so we got to spend some quality time with them.
Christmas is a whole other story. Now, money has to be saved for flights home, time has to be taken off from work, dog has to be boarded and even the gifts we buy have to be able to fit in our carryon, or we have to ship them all to our destination. Everyone's getting tiny gifts or gift certificates. They travel well.
Our house is usually decked with multiple trees, garland everywhere and every flat space has some sort of holiday stuff. It looks like Christmas threw up in our house. We enjoy taking a few weeks in November getting the house ready and showing off what we've done. We take pride in what we put together and enjoy the decorations for as long as we can. This year? We put up one Disney tree in the living room, covered in all of our Disney ornaments we've collected over the years. The tree makes us both happy.
We're renting for now, so it doesn't feel like home. As much as we've tried to make it a home, it's not ours. It's much smaller than we're used to, so we don't have the room to put out all we want. It's tough with so much stored away to even find anything. I think all of this has put a damper on our holiday spirit.
We have a full month ahead of us, so I'm hoping we can start some of our own traditions and make this place feel more like home during the holidays.
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