Prologue
I meant to do this last Monday, but I got substitute teaching jobs three days in a row. Since my writing priority so far this year has been the main 2 Generations Gaming page, this entry got postponed. However, it works out because then, in two weeks, I can do my back to school entry. I’ve done one about Thanksgiving and Halloween. The last one was about Winter in general. All of that was done with the plan in mind that this entry would be about Christmas and New Year’s.
Since the 2GG end of the year article followed a more traditional format of best and worst of the year, I wanted to make this one less cliche. I can’t promise anything as it would appear that I’m becoming the living embodiment of the midlife crisis cliche. However, I will try to keep the fluff to a minimum. Let’s see how successful I am.
Journal
Many of my entries last year focused on one theme. (Cliche alert!) When faced with the second “half” of your life, it is only natural to look at the first “half”. More often than not, you will find things that you want to change. At least, that seems to be my attitude regarding all of this mid-life nonsense. Because that was the theme of last year. Change.
New Year
I started running to help Aiden finish his Boys on the Right Track 5k. That first run ended with me limping in pain the entire second half of it and finishing dead last. Unhappy with that result, I started a couch to 5k program on my phone. When the final 5k event happened, I was about halfway through my training. I was no longer in pain at the end. In fact, I danced a little bit at the finish line. I did not come in last, either! While the winter has slowed my schedule some, I had been running the entire 5k distance about 3 or 4 times a week.
I can’t say for certain that my running has kept me from falling into the “winter blues” that I often experience in January and February. I can only speculate that as the reason. It could be because of the other big change that I made this year. Then again, maybe it is because of my running that kept me from falling into a funk and leading to my new outlook. There’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing happening here.
I wrote in my miniature painting (that’s painting war miniatures for you non-nerds out there) article on the main site that I’m not much of a resolutions guy. That’s true. I generally don’t make resolutions because (cliche alert!) you often end up breaking them within 2 weeks, feel bad about yourself, spiral out of control, and end up worse than you started. Instead, this year, I’ve decided to continue to live my life according to the improv credo of “Yes, and…”
I realized recently that’s been my major change. Instead of being content with putting things off (sometimes until they were no longer relevant or, in some cases, unattainable), I have been doing them. It sounds like an easy change and, ultimately, it was. The hardest part was the first few times. As I said to my wife the other day, “Humans are creatures of habit. Once you’ve established that habit, it is easy to just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Now, all that remains is to get through the next big test. I start school next week and will start a night time job this week. I’m teaching 5 classes again, plus a lab, so I’m going to be very busy. It remains to be seen if I will be able to maintain my writing schedule. I’ve resigned myself that I won’t be able to write every day, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try.
Christmas
In contrast to all of the change that the New Year brings, it’s nice to have the stability of the traditions of Christmas. Granted, our traditions aren’t generations spanning rituals or anything. Also, some of those traditions are currently in flux. Still, it is nice to have that consistency to welcome you into the season. Creatures of habit and all.
Every year we visit a festival of trees. This one is multigenerational. It started with Christine, me, and my parents many years ago. Now we go with our kids. The past two years we have gone to one that they started at Yankee Candle because it is closer and also fun to go visit the store during the holidays. Similarly, we have gone to a light display almost every year. We started at Bright Nights in Springfield. This year and last it was Look Park because they had a model train show, too.
A few years ago, we went to Old Sturbridge Village for their Christmas by Candlelight experience. It was a lot of fun (and also free) and that brought us back again. The second time wasn’t as fun because there wasn’t as much snow. This year, we didn’t even think about doing it because of the arctic temperatures. So, as I said, there’s some flux to our traditions. Mainly, Liam is growing up. For those of you that still believe, I’ll just leave it at that.
My most favorite tradition every year is going to Christine’s parents house for the day of Christmas. It used to be her aunt and uncle and cousins there, too, with karaoke and laughs until too late at night. Now that everyone has kids of their own, it has just been us, our kids, Christine’s sister’s family, and her parents. The laughs are still plenty, but the karaoke hasn’t been as plentiful. Dinner and appetizers are always the best and this year I spent the entire day lying in their kitchen nook watching a whole season of Holiday Baking Championship.
Epilogue
The New Year holiday brings naturally brings with it change. (cliche alert!) The changing of the calendar from one year to the next makes you think of all the hopeful new possibilities of that new year. I often denigrate it as the one second holiday and don’t put much stock in the concept of resolutions. However, this year is different. I’ve spent most of the last year changing, in fact. I think and hope that all of the changes are for the better.
Because the things that haven’t changed are pretty great, too. It may be my new attitude, but this is the first winter break in a long time that I remember as being awesome all around. The crazy thing about it is that we didn’t do that much during the break. Other than the usual, we mostly just sat around the house and avoided the cold temperatures. Though I know it must, I don’t want it to ever change.