For many of us who are now grown up, and like in my case well over the hill, Christmas is no longer the same as it used to be.
Very often these days families have spread far and wide, making it harder with every year to get everyone together for a family celebration during the holidays. In addition so many families have been through divorces, that can cause rifts during the holidays, especially when children have to choose which parents to visit on Christmas Day.
Our family is one of those where both divorce and moving away from the area where the family grew up has meant that getting everyone together for the holidays is pretty much impossible any more.
It’s sad really, because when I was growing up, we were the only ones on my Mother’s side of the family who lived away from the area that the family had belonged in for generations, and we always made it to my Grandmother’s house for Christmas, as did everyone else.
I have many memories of Christmases Past which I wrote about on Yahoo Voices.
I hope you have time to follow the story there and to learn about our family Christmas traditions, now fading into distant memory, but which I hope by writing about has helped to keep those memories alive for future generations.