I stayed out in California an extra week this year to help my mom get packed up for her impending move to Colorado. It was emblematic of how family traditions change. For Mom it’s an obvious change — a series of changes that she’s been dealing with for a number of years since Dad passed away, but faces even more as she leaves her home of forty years. We spent the evening at dinner than then afterward with some friends of hers from church, so it was a set of good-byes and thinking about the past.
That said, it was a change for me, too. I’m not sure I’ve spent a New Year’s Eve apart from Margie since we were married, but it was fun (if I couldn’t do that) to spend the time with Mom and her friends, and thinking about the changes in our family traditions (including since Margie’s folks moved out near us), and about how things will further change (for the better, but change nonetheless) with Mom’s arrival.
But thinking about change is a natural part of the turnover of the year.
I brought out some party favors and we actually rang in the New Year at midnight. Good times.
On my side, these last few years have been the first time in my life I haven’t spent Christmas with my mother (although my ex still is). It’s an odd change.