My true meaning of Christmas
Nov. 23rd, 2010 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesI discovered a Christmas song I liked*. A bit early. Anyway...
White Wine in the Sun, by Tim Minchin
Video
Lyrics
It's a song about how the singer isn't religious and doesn't like the consumerism of Christmas, but he really likes Christmas because of his family, and how he's passing the close-knit family he has down to his little daughter.
it just made me think about my mother and our family. I'm going to be visiting my aunt for Thanksgiving. She has a big to-do every year -- before my grandmother died, it was four generations of family under one roof. Normal attendance is my aunt and her husband, kids, and their spouses and kids, my uncle Donny and his family, my uncle Bobby and one of his daughters and her kids, my Uncle Jay, and me, plus friends who need a place to spend the holiday. (My cousin Martha has brought friends, and her husband has brought his fellow grad students so they have somewhere to be during the holiday.)
Also, both my grandmother's family and my grandfather's have a family Christmas party of people descended from their parents (so descendants of my maternal grandfather's parents and descendants of my maternal grandmother's parents). My grandfather's family also has a summer reunion usually hosted by my Uncle Jay and some of my cousins-once-removed up the coast in August.
But, every Christmas so far, I've gone home. To see my mother and brother and sister and brother-in-law, and usually my dad and stepmom. And some close friends who are family in all but blood. Someday, maybe, I won't be able to get home over the break. I hope never, because that's what Christmas is to me. I'm not religious and the gifts, unless home-made, are things I'd buy for myself. But it's about being with the people that I care about, and doing things like having meals and watching movies and talking.
* Because someone put a cover of it on a Christmas album and people threw a fit about the fact it was sung by someone for whom Christmas wasn't about Jesus.
White Wine in the Sun, by Tim Minchin
Video
Lyrics
It's a song about how the singer isn't religious and doesn't like the consumerism of Christmas, but he really likes Christmas because of his family, and how he's passing the close-knit family he has down to his little daughter.
it just made me think about my mother and our family. I'm going to be visiting my aunt for Thanksgiving. She has a big to-do every year -- before my grandmother died, it was four generations of family under one roof. Normal attendance is my aunt and her husband, kids, and their spouses and kids, my uncle Donny and his family, my uncle Bobby and one of his daughters and her kids, my Uncle Jay, and me, plus friends who need a place to spend the holiday. (My cousin Martha has brought friends, and her husband has brought his fellow grad students so they have somewhere to be during the holiday.)
Also, both my grandmother's family and my grandfather's have a family Christmas party of people descended from their parents (so descendants of my maternal grandfather's parents and descendants of my maternal grandmother's parents). My grandfather's family also has a summer reunion usually hosted by my Uncle Jay and some of my cousins-once-removed up the coast in August.
But, every Christmas so far, I've gone home. To see my mother and brother and sister and brother-in-law, and usually my dad and stepmom. And some close friends who are family in all but blood. Someday, maybe, I won't be able to get home over the break. I hope never, because that's what Christmas is to me. I'm not religious and the gifts, unless home-made, are things I'd buy for myself. But it's about being with the people that I care about, and doing things like having meals and watching movies and talking.
* Because someone put a cover of it on a Christmas album and people threw a fit about the fact it was sung by someone for whom Christmas wasn't about Jesus.
