What Christmas feels like these days for Boomers....

[OKNancy]

8. Our families have adjusted to a more practical Holiday time

I had my family here... not all since we are spread out all over the US. I made it more like a party with smoked ham and turkey and then made lots of party foods. Then we do dirty Santa. This year it was "white elephant" Bring something from you home that you have but don't need or use. No junk though. We have done variations on this for a while now. It was fun. Lots of laughs.

My husband's family does the same thing. They liked our idea so they adapted it. So instead of buying 30 presents for the whole clan, we just give away 6 items we already have. There are three in our household; me my husband and our adult daughter who is here for a while until she gets her college debt down a little. For what it's worth, we get along great. So no problems there.

The only gifts we buy are for our household plus our other grown daughter who lives in Portland. Nothing extravagant.

I can't say that our family is in a bad mood at all, and we love to watch TV. Many of the family love to gather and watch football.
My elderly mom and I get together and watch old movies and the period pieces they show on PBS.
Otherwise, I have MSNBC on all day. It keeps me company and I'm pretty certain it doesn't change my mood unless they have a Republican on. If that is the case, I get great pleasure in cussing at the TV.

It was great fun last night at my brother-in-laws house. After dinner we sat around the fire-pit with all the younger members of the family and drank wine, told bawdy stories, and laughed until it hurt.