Holidays are Different

Hi everyone! I hope you all are doing well and had a great Thanksgiving or holiday weekend! Before I begin today, I just want to ask for any of you to submit post subjects or ideas. I want to write what you want to hear and read on this blog, so your ideas help me so much. It does not matter if you are a sibling, a parent, a family member, or even just a reader, send me your ideas! You can send your requests to the contact tab on the website or to my email: alexbiglittlesister@gmail.com.

Lets hop into to today's topic. Today I want to talk about holidays. Holidays are different in my family, we have different processes and treatments than most, so I thought I would share some of them with you all.

Thanksgiving is really no different for my family. We host, my dad makes an amazing dinner, and we eat. There really are no other modifications due to Cate!

Christmas traditions are definitely more different in out house. On Christmas mornings, most families wake up and grab all their family members and let the festivities begin. We do this process a little differently here. Getting Cate out of bed takes a lot of time and this amount of time is not something an excited kid would want to waste, and I definitely did not want to wait for her routine on Christmas morning. I would wake up my parents and then the three of us would go downstairs and open my stocking and Santa presents (in our house, we have a Santa tree and a family tree, so I would open the presents under the Santa tree). My excitement could not wait for Cate's morning routine. After I finished ripping through of all my Christmas presents under the Santa tree, then we would get Cate up and go through her routine, then she would open her Santa gifts. Then after all of that, we opened our family tree gifts. As I have gotten older, we now get Cate up to do everything with us and we alternate who opens a gift. I have found that we definitely try to make the process longer now.

Our traditions aren't all that different, but they still make it special for me on these holidays. This year we have a whole new factor in our traditions though...

COVID-19 changes everything this year. There is little to none family and friends, restrictions, and a lack of going out and celebrating. Not only for my family this year, but it is different for everyone. We have to be very careful with COVID because of Cate as even though she does not have any respiratory compromises, we do not know how she will respond if she does get COVID. I am very limited in what and who I can see friend wise, and we really do not see any of our family. Now with cases in our area rising higher and higher, the limitations become more and more prominent in everyday life. For Thanksgiving a couple of days ago, we did not have anyone over for dinner and for the first time in my life, it was just the 4 of us. Despite missing having family over, I actually really enjoyed it. There was no stress and it was just a relaxed day with my mom, dad, and Cate. For Christmas this year, we are having no one and not traveling to Cape Cod as we usually do.

Things are very different, but you have to make the best of them and enjoy the time you do have with your loved ones. I am very fortunate and lucky that I love being with my family and we enjoy each others company, so this whole new situation this year made me more thankful for them.

Thanks for reading this week, I am thankful for all of you. Stay safe and have a great week and weekend ahead.

--Alex