Day TwentSix- So this is Christmas.

I think there used to be traditions in the Palumbo home. The children used to put out milk and cookies, and be too excited to sleep. Christmas morning would start before the dawn, and the sound of my mother yelling, "No, we have to wait for dad" would be repeated as the children shook gifts, unable to hear anything but the screaming in their heads. The presents would spill out from under the tree, and after the massacre finished the wrapping paper would spend the day on the floor as a reminder to all who came near: Christmas is here.

Eventually this all ended. No more milk and cookies. No more excited mornings. Not more tree filled with gifts.
Instead, I don't eat sugar, I'm not a morning person, and as my father keeps reminding us, "The gravy train has ended, soon we will move and you won't hear from us for months."

This Christmas my sister got up at 11:30am. My mother asked excitedly if we wanted to do gifts, the near barren tree a ghost of what used to be. A few small things were exchanged, my dad got a frying pan, my mom a sweatshirt. My sister and I received cash- the best gift of all.

Coffee was made, breakfast was had. No family came over, no one got out of sweatpants.

In the late afternoon dinner was mentioned and my mom got up to prepare spaghetti and meatballs, we are Italian after all. We didn't eat around the table as a family though. Instead we sat on the couches and continued the Duck Dynasty marathon we had been watching all afternoon.

Christmas in the Palumbo house was a great day.

This is not the "traditional" Christmas that one thinks of existing inside of a Norman Rockwell painting. But I don't think there is a such thing as "normal" when it comes to Christmas. Every family has their own traditions, every family does things a little differently.

I don't need to wake up early on Christmas morning to feel like a kid, or to meet some expectation of what Christmas "should" be. Everyone is their own brand of weird. This should be embraced. You think my late morning Christmas and six hour Duck Dynasty marathon is too strange for you? There's a reason you weren't invited over.

Moral of the story: Enjoy the brand of weird your family is. Also, Duck Dynasty is literally my favorite.