Different, But Sweet

We had all of our Christmas celebrations this weekend. 

Ryan and I are scheduled to work Christmas Eve and Day, so our celebrations came early this year. There were three small gatherings - one with our WillowBridge family, one with my family, and one with Ryan's family.

Last year was our first year to celebrate Christmas with WillowBridge, and the evening was full of pictures, giggles, and loud exclamations of joy. That's what happens when you have a building of girls who love glitter, unicorns, and tearing into gifts. 

This year, our tenants are all guys, and it was a bit harder to figure out how to make the evening special for them. We hoped they'd like their gifts, but we just met some of them, so we're still learning their likes and dislikes. (And we learned that guys make much shorter wish lists than girls!) We organized some games, but we didn't know how excited they'd be about playing them. (Turns out that Minute to Win It games are good choices for the all-guy crowd.)

But you know what? It was a good night. They devoured the breakfast food, they had fun with the games, and they seemed to like their gifts, even though they didn't squeal and pose for pictures with each opened bag. The night still felt like a success, though. I hope somewhere in the fellowship, the reading of Luke 2, the prayer, and the gifts shared, they felt loved. I hope they felt for a moment that they were part of a family celebration, even though we aren't related by blood. 

My family celebration was small this year, but it was a good day. My mom worked hard to prepare the meal - and even though my sister and I offered to help pitch in with food, she wanted to do it all! Everything was delicious, and we sat around after, sharing the gifts we bought for each other. We came home with a stack of memories and pictures to accompany them.

It's been years now since my grandparents were alive and our family Christmases extended to that generation and to my aunt, uncle, and cousins. We've been a small gathering for the last several years, but I'm grateful we can still get together and carry on our traditions! 

And then we gathered with Ryan's siblings for the first time without either Allen or Nita leading the way. Ryan's sisters planned the evening with the traditional breakfast foods. Ryan's brother-in-law took over cooking the pancakes that Allen always made. Ryan led the prayer and a couple of the grandsons read Luke 2. And Allen's mom joined us, which was as good for her as it was for all the kids, I think!

So it was a different kind of year. But even with all the different, it was a good and memorable year. I love tradition as much as the next person, but I think there's always a danger that we get so caught up in duplicating each year from the one before that we miss the beauty of the different. 

Maybe you have some different-looking days ahead of you this year too. Maybe some difficult ones. It's certainly okay to grieve the losses and hurts, but I still encourage you to look for the moments of beauty in there. I'm grateful for the ones we found this weekend!