For the first time ever, I spent Christmas by myself. Christmas Eve was spent with our little family at my niece's house. Christmas day, Chris worked, so I was on my own.
But I was alone, as opposed to isolating. And it wasn't bad.
I stayed in my jammies until around 2 p.m., at which point I decided to go to the movies. "Skyfall" was my final choice and I highly recommend it. I almost went for Chinese into the bargain, but there was a ton of leftovers back home, so I opted for that. And everyone knows holiday food is better the next day: ham, turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, baked apples, the works.
Then Chris came home from working and it was...just another evening at home. (Although the choices on TV were really wretched. I guess they figured everybody would be at the movies.)
In the weeks leading up to the holiday I was acutely aware that this year, for some reason, I was really missing my parents. It's not the first Christmas I've spent without them, but their absence seemed more noticeable for some reason.
It's what happens when you get older, I guess: friends and family, especially, begin to fall away. You adjust. You miss them, you remember them.
But you also enjoy the moment, make the most of what is. You remember without living in the past. Look forward without living in the future.
The memories were inevitable: childhood Christmas eves with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, waiting for Santa. How long the season seemed back then. How different Christmas day felt compared to the rest of the year.
So now on to New Year's and my birthday and (God willing) celebrating 29 years sober. It wasn't so bad being home alone. At least no one had forgotten about me. And I didn't have housebreakers to thwart with ingenious booby traps. It was just me and Mr Kitty, snuggled under a new plush throw.
And it wasn't bad.
