As you read this, I am home in my PJs enjoying my third day off this week — an extra bonus this year that might not happen again in 2025. We’ll have to see if the paper comes out on time next week.
The time after Christmas and before New Year’s is always a rather strange time of year. Holiday celebrations continue, but with a different flavor than they had before Dec. 25. The tree is starting to dry out, the cookies are getting stale and the thought of drinking another glass of egg nog can stir feelings of nausea.
Producing a paper at this time of year is especially strange. I’m actually writing this column on Dec. 23. Christmas is still two days away! So I can’t really reflect on how it all went.
But that won’t stop me from making some predictions.
• Inviting my birth mother and my birth father and his wife to stay with us for the holidays will turn out to be a great decision. I already had a wonderful day with Pat on Sunday, doing some shopping, getting a massage and wrapping presents — all mother-daughter activities we’ve never been able to enjoy together. Bob and Shari arrived Monday (I can’t wait to finish my work today to go home and see them) and I know we’ll have a great time, as well.
• Some gifts will be hits, some misses.
We invest so much time and money trying to find just the right present. Sometimes we’re right and other times the item ends up sitting in the closet unopened for a year. As kids get older, the percentage of misses seems to rise — unless you give cash. But being together opening presents Christmas morning is a gift itself, regardless of what’s underneath all that wrapping paper.
• “A Christmas Story” will be as funny as ever. My birth mom has never seen it, believe it or not, and will think it’s a classic. (If this turns out not to be true, I promise to run a correction in next week’s paper.)
• The live nativity service at Hinsdale Covenant Church will serve as a wonderful reminder of what Christmas is all about. There was no glitz or glam when a teenage Mary gave birth to her son in a stable — or cave — more than 2,000 years ago. The chaos of having sheep and a donkey and kids involved in the telling of the Christmas story is not only appropriate, it’s enjoyable.
• The toffee cheesecake will turn out beautifully.
I might be tempting fate by writing this the day before I make the cheesecake, but I overcooked the last one I made when Bob was in town and am due for a hit and not another miss.
• Ainsley will receive too much candy.
This is a truth universally acknowledged every holiday in our house.
• I will not able be to read the prayer before dinner without crying.
I haven’t yet been able to make it through yet, so I imagine celebrating Christmas for the first time with my birth parents will not be the first year that I don’t choke up.
• It all will go by too fast.
I am certain of this. After weeks of preparation and anticipation, snap, the holidays are over. But our memories, fortunately, will last beyond the New Year.
I hope all of you will have/had a wonderful holiday as well.
— Pamela Lannom is editor
of The Hinsdalean. Readers
can email her at
