I’m thinking that this coming Christmas holiday might be the first one I haven’t dreaded since I was about 11.
That has a lot to do with the fact that my mom and dad got divorced then and I was suddenly the one who had to help with Christmas decorations.
And when I say help, I mean sweat in subtropical HVAC heating while my mom gives me directives. It’s all move this, move that and then bringing down box after box from the freezing attic where there is no HVAC. It’s interesting how I always got a cold around the first of December. Surely it had nothing to do with going from 30 minutes of no HVAC heating to and hour in the house with the thermostat at 85. And just doing that over and over again for a weekend. So yea, I’m really excited that this year, I said no more. My wife and I have traveled to her mom or to my mom to celebrated Christmas since we’ve been married. Now that we have little ones, they can come to us. It didn’t matter whose mom we went to, it was like unwrapping presents in an oven. I don’t know what is up with those two ladies and their mid 80’s thermostat settings. But, I’m just done with that. And if my mom disowns me over it, so be it. And my mother in law doesn’t really like me much anyway so who cares. This year, the thermostat will be set at 70 degrees as we live in a region where the heat pump doesn’t have that much work to do in the winter. And I will enjoy the first Christmas with my immediate family ever.