In years past Christmas Eve has been an exercise in stamina. Earl and I would drive down to his father’s house on December 23rd, spend the night and the spend the day before Christmas helping with the preparations for the family Christmas Eve celebration. Said celebration started promptly at 5 p.m. Presents were never opened until after dinner, so the party wouldn’t start winding down until 9:00 or so. It was at this time that Earl and I would jump into the car and we would make the trek up through Pennsylvania and Upstate New York, to arrive at home around 2:30 where we’d go to sleep as soon as possible, all for the experience of waking in our own bed on Christmas morning. We love visiting his family, but that’s a lot of driving in a short amount of time.
We’d then tear around Central New York visiting various family members on my side of the family before arriving home and falling back into our beds exhausted.
We decided to mix it up a little bit this year and do our own thing for Christmas Eve. So tonight, for the first time since we’ve started this partnership, we had our first Christmas Eve dinner together. Just the two of us.
Earl made a delicious Prime Rib Dinner. It was quite nice.
That’s the way it should be, and take it from one who know from 35 years experience of how it should not be.