Home for Christmas

(When I typed that title, I accidentally typo-ed "Hoe for Christmas." I thought about leaving it, but decided someday, somewhere, someone wouldn't understand. At all.)

Yep, I actually have time on my hands. Not a lot, mind you. I have a pretty tight schedule, fitting in all the goofing off I've been meaning to do. I had a lovely Christmas. It was weird, though. It's always been a tradition in my family (like most families, I imagine) to spend an afternoon picking out a tree and take an evening decorating it and the rest of the house together. But my brothers are hardly ever home, and it just never got done. So finally, two days before Christmas, my mom said to me while we were out shopping for stocking stuffers, "You know, we're just going to have to take it down in a week or so anyway. It seems like an awful lot of work to put it up only to have to put it away so soon. I'd just as soon get a poinsettia or something and just put the presents around that." I actually agreed. Which is weird, because I've always been the one who's really big on traditions and raises a stink when somebody wants to change something. It just seemed like what she was saying made sense, and plus, when were we ever going to be all together to get a tree put together anyway?

So that's what we did. And it looked really nice. And the Brothers were actually home all day on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And we played Nerts and Skip-Bo and Egyptian Rat Screw and we watched a bunch of movies...and it was really fun. It was nice to have them home. I'd lately started to feel hurt that they never wanted to hang out with me. We used to play together all the time--making up games, and playing board games, and building things with Legos. And then we all grew up, and forgot how to use our imaginations, and learned to use the computer instead of talking to eachother. It's harder now, too, because since we moved here after I graduated, I don't know anyone (except Carleen, which is weird, because I didn't meet her until I went to college), and so if I'm going to hang out with anyone, it's going to be my family. And they are 16 and 18 years old, so the last thing they want to do is be with their family. And when they're not out with their friends, they're talking to them online, shutting the rest of us out. That hurts.

I understand, I really do understand wanting to be out with friends, but sometimes it's just like, "Hey, I'm home from college. Remember how we don't get to see eachother very often? Remember how we actually do love eachother? Remember how I'm pathetic and lonely and I don't have any friends?" Not that it's their job to be my friends or keep me happy, but you know. I miss them.

But it really was a great Christmas. I wish we could do it again tomorrow.