Louanne, the girls and I were riding through Cary on New Year’s Eve when Louanne commented that this was one of the best Christmases we’ve had as a family in a long time – perhaps the best of all time. We all began to take inventory of the events and happenings that contributed to this declaration, and it wasn’t long before we were all in agreement with Louanne. This was indeed one of our best Christmases ever.
It was somewhere around this point that I began getting that sad, nagging feeling in my stomach that I get near the end of all vacations; that sick feeling that in only a short amount of days all of the great times we were reminiscing over would be distant memories. It wouldn’t be long, I thought, that I’ll be on a plane or in a cold hotel room somewhere, far away from these relaxed and simpler times.
Then I began to do what most men do. I started to try and identify the source of this affliction so that I could somehow repair it. If I could identify why it is that I get these sick feelings about my vacation being over, then I could avoid that post-vacation letdown once and for all. I hate going back to work after a vacation is over. No matter when or where the vacation is, there is always a letdown. So I began to think about why that is, and whether or not it can be fixed or avoided altogether. Let the evaluation process begin.
Over the next couple of days, as my own personal D-day of January 3, 2011 drew near, I ran this great mystery through my mind in an effort to solve it. I decided to start at the beginning of this conflict to figure out how I got to this point. This required going back over the holidays, beginning with Thanksgiving, and reminiscing in detail about all of the things I had done. The list is impressive:
- Thanksgiving weekend was a real blast. We had a house full of family on Thanksgiving Day, including Louanne’s brother and his family, her parents, one of her cousins and his wife, and my parents. We went to eat at McCall’s – a great BBQ and seafood place in Clayton, NC, and we enjoyed a wonderful weekend filled with food, fun and family fellowship.
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| Mema and Pepa Miller |
- My mom and dad gave Louanne, the kids and me tickets to see the Nutcracker ballet at the NC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem on December 4th. This is a family tradition that was begun by Louanne and me before we had children. One December I took Louanne to see the ballet when we had very little money, and we had such a great time. We felt like we were special strolling into the Stevens Center and sitting near the stage amongst “the rich people”. We carried that tradition on for a few years until we moved to Cary in 2000. This year mom and dad surprised us with tickets for the whole family, and it was a special time for all of us.
- A friend gave Louanne and me tickets to an off-Broadway performance of Young Frankenstein at the Durham Performing Arts Center. While this isn’t a Christmas-themed play, it was a rare Saturday date for us, and we enjoyed the performance very much. I will never listen to Puttin’ on the Ritz again without laughing and thinking about Frankenstein coaching his monster to get the lyrics right. We finished the evening at Tyler’s Tap Room on The American Tobacco campus with some tasty fried olives, delicious fish tacos and a French Dip. A great date Saturday!
- December 16th was my first day of Christmas vacation, and it was a wonderful first day. We all slept late and woke up around 9:30 to a mess of freezing rain and sleet outside. The roads were icy for a while before clearing, but we weren’t concerned with the roads. We fixed a hot breakfast, then took our plates and gathered in the den – something we don’t regularly do. As we sat together, we decided to get to the business of knocking out our list of Christmas movies we wanted to watch. So we sat in the den together on that icy morning, ate breakfast and watched A Christmas Story until noon. That was only the beginning. After a restful afternoon, the Conklin family came over and we continued our annual tradition of getting the families together for snacks and a viewing of Christmas Vacation. What a day!
- A surprise visit to Louanne’s parents in Whiteville, NC was next on our holiday itinerary. We decided to ride down and show up unannounced for our Christmas visit with them. They were both surprised and excited to see us. We stayed a couple of days with them, and we had a very nice time. Mr. and Mrs. Langston have always treated me like their own son and I have been blessed to have them in my life. We had a wonderful time visiting with them, and we enjoyed some good food at Pizza Village and Dale’s Seafood. They have done so much for our family over the years, and we all love to go to Whiteville to Grandmama and Granddaddy’s house. As usual, they spoiled us with too much, and we left with another haul of Christmas goodies.
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| Grandmama and Granddaddy Langston |
- We spent Christmas Eve this year in Willow Spring, and had a wonderful family day together. After a late breakfast, we headed to the mall in Cary to watch all of the last-minute shoppers scurry around to find that special something they needed. Later that evening, we enjoyed an awesome candlelight dinner of grilled ribeyes and shrimp with all of the trimmings, and watched some Christmas movies before turning in.
- Perhaps the biggest news note of this past holiday season was our white Christmas. Raleigh last saw snow on Christmas in 1947, but the weather folks here called for, and got, a big Christmas snowstorm. It started snowing at our house just before midnight on Christmas, and we woke up the next morning to 7-8” of snow! We spent the morning outside playing, walking and taking pictures, then we loaded up and went to visit my parents in Kernersville, NC. Kernersville had just as much snow on the ground as we did, so the drive from Willow Spring to Kernersville was beautiful. We visited with Mom and Dad for a couple of days and enjoyed exchanging gifts, cooking and fellowshipping with them before heading back to Willow Spring to finish out the rest of 2010. We all love going to Kernersville and spending time with Mema and Pepa, and it is always most special during the Christmas season.
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| Cam and Hallie in the Snow |
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| A Beautiful Christmas Landscape |
That is quite the holiday list, and I just hit the highlights. It is easy to see from such a great holiday season why the thought of it coming to an end was so unappealing. But had I figured anything out from my most excellent review? I think so.
One of my most favorite Christmas movies of all-time is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In that movie a quintessential bumbling family man, Clark Griswold, comments throughout the movie that his ultimate goal in gathering his family into his home for the holidays is to provide them a “fun old-fashioned family Christmas”. However, the poor soul stumbles his way through the whole Christmas season and finds himself responsible for one conundrum after another. He just can’t get it right.
When I reflect back on our 2010 holiday season, I think that we were the opposite of Clark and his family. I think that the Millers and Langstons actually got it right, and were able to put together a fun old-fashioned family Christmas. And we didn’t even have to work at it!
Everything we did during this past holiday season was fun, and everyone had an enjoyable time throughout the whole season. Also, much of what we did could be considered old-fashioned. Some of the Christmas movies we watched were classics made in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s; we made goodies and snacks from recipes that we have enjoyed since Louanne and I were children; we slowed down and visited with family and reminisced about past holiday celebrations; and we continued to pass along family traditions for our children to carry on someday. Not only did we have a fun Christmas vacation, but we were kind of old-fashioned in some of the things we did. But fun and old-fashioned was only part of it. The key to our whole Christmas being enjoyable, and the crux of my impending letdown afterwards, was the family part of it.
I believe that the importance of family is often overlooked in today’s culture. I also believe that family is part of God’s perfect design for all of us, and I know for sure that it is my family that defines me. On my own I do not amount to a whole lot as an individual. But with my family, I am much more valuable and fulfilled. It goes without saying that I am much more content with my family than I am alone. For example, I’ve written about how I love to hit the open road and see different things, eat at different places, etc. I get to do that a lot when traveling alone through work. But seeing new things and experiencing those adventures doesn’t mean as much to me until I get back home and share them with my family. Being able to tell them about what I’ve seen and done is the most important part of my travels. Only then do my adventures mean anything.
So now that I’m back into the normal grind and looking back on our great holiday season, I have learned the key to my incessant vacation letdowns. Those letdowns are fueled by the awesome family that I have, and it is knowing that I won’t be able to spend all of that time with them again until the next vacation that brings stirs that nagging feeling. What I will remember and reflect on while I’m on that plane or sitting in that cold hotel room won’t necessarily be the events or places we went during this holiday season. The smiles and contentment I'll have will come when I remember what was said by one of my kids, or a memory of a moment when Louanne and I shared a laugh together, or a memory spent with one of our parents. Sure, the things we do are fun and I love doing them all, and hope to do them again next year. But more important to me is my family, and being able to spend as much time with them as possible. Sharing time with them is where the real joy of any vacation or adventure lies for me.
Louanne was right – this was one of our family’s best Christmases ever. Why wouldn’t it be? We had a fun old-fashioned family Christmas.
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