One last Christmas goodbye.

 Well another holiday season over, all the effort into which ever or whatever type of holiday people took part in or didn't take part in, the lights, songs, wishes, parties, gifts, movies, stories, cartoons and food, food, food. All over, now we settle down for winter but at least we know the darkest days are behind us. This holiday season didn't feel like it flew by, it feels to me like Christmas was a month ago instead of only a week. I'm actually still in a holiday mood, I am going to leave my decorations up until the weekend. I want to try and have people over before I take them down. Watching Charlie Brown Christmas clips on YouTube just recharges my Christmas spirit more lol. This was a good Christmas for me.

 I don't mean that anything extraordinary happened over the holidays, to be honest it was a lot less exciting than other years. I just mean that I didn't feel lonely or lost as I have the last two Christmases. I am surprised that I am still here, I thought last Christmas was my final one on the farm. I think that is what made it easier, I have said all my goodbyes to past memories and traditions. I have accepted moving on from here. This is probably going to be boring to most people but it's something I felt I wanted to put down in writing to look back on.

 There was one final goodbye that I wanted to make for myself, one final acknowledgement. Christmas day was beautiful here, a clear sunny day and not too cold, in other words a good day to drive. When the sun began thinking about setting, I took mom to her seniors home but I didn't want to return home myself just yet. I wanted to return to where I used to be celebrating Christmas at this time of day, my grandparents house. We were close to all our grandparents but more so to my mom's parents, we spent every Sunday there. At Christmas we would have a Christmas lunch and then go to my grandparents house. It was the typical hallmark movie, country Christmas. A huge gathering of family, lots of fun, lots of food and there was a skating rink across the street. I know now how lucky I was to have that.

 I drove to the town where my grandparent's house is, I parked across the street where the rink fortunately still exists. No one lives in my grandparents house now, no one has lived there for about five years. I shook my head at the contrast of the house being in total darkness, unkempt snow filled driveway and path. Compare that to Christmas lights, people, laughter, talking, smells of cooking the usual Christmas stuff of old... but eventually everything changes and I'm ok with that now, I don't feel like life has a vendetta against me.

 It wasn't a negative experience, it just was an experience. In fact the center was beautifully decorated in lights and Christmas trees, some of the surrounding houses were also well decorated so it wasn't a total gloomy feeling. I don't really remember our last Christmas there, once my grandparents started to get ill, holiday plans changed. I wanted closure of some sort, so as I drove away, I said softly to myself, Merry Christmas grandma and grandpa, thank you for the great memories. Then I proceeded down the back roads that would take me home like we used to do. I was thinking that it has probably been more than twenty five years since that happened, driving home with the bright moon shining on the snow, I was remembering all the times that we had done that as a family, tired and full but still a little bit excited at the end of a fantastic Christmas day.