I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams……

It is the last Saturday morning of baking for the farmers market. I sit here wondering what I would do with my time now that this has come to an end. I use the baking and farmers market as a way to distract myself  from the holidays, because this is my least favorite time of year.

Do I sound like Scrooge ? So let me try this again.

I know it is the time of giving,  for family, joy,  celebration and it is also time for cold weather too.

Despite all of that and no matter how I put it or look at it, it is still my least favorite time of the year and let me tell you why.

For starters I hate cold weather, but that is not why I don’t like this time of the year. I dislike it because I miss my family and friends the most around this time. It does not mean I don’t miss them the rest of the year, but the holidays seems to be the time to celebrate and enjoy with friends and family and I miss the times I had with them during Christmas.

So I typically throw myself into various projects and  hope that the holiday season will whizz pass me and I would have survived it again.  Last year I threw an elaborate Christmas party for some of my friends. I decided I don’t want to do that again, even though I enjoyed it.  It was time-consuming and exhausting, because I went a little overboard with getting into party mode.

Of course on the other hand I could buy a ticket and fly across the world to be with my family.  The downside of that is the tickets are a thousand dollars more during this time of the year and it is a tough decision if I want to spend that much money on a ticket or use that money towards something else for them. Plus I also have learnt from past experiences of going back that Christmas with my family is not how I remember it.

A few years ago, after my having talked so much about how we celebrated Christmas, my then boy friend suggested we go visit during that time. We spent the extra money, bought lots of gifts and we went there.  I was excited about going to midnight mass, the exchanging of gifts and the food and drink we would consume after that and all the fun things I remembered we used to do.

However, I go there and to my dismay I find everything is different. We did go for midnight mass, but sans half of the family and those who did go, went to make me happy. I was not going to let that little part hinder my excitement. I kept thinking we would get home exchange gifts, eat some food and it will be just how I remembered it to be. Instead, my sister has this huge party for a bunch of their friends (strangers to me) and my parents are long gone to bed and nothing was like had envisioned it.  I was of course disappointed and sad that things had changed so much and nothing was how I remembered it to be.

So now instead of spending that extra money on a air-ticket, I chose to stay here, cling to my memories, stay busy and to steal a line from Frank Sinatra,  I just dream of being home for Christmas.