The Calm of Christmas Eve

During the day on Christmas Eve, my wife is busy making the traditional 13 course Russian Christmas Eve dinner (I'll blog about that tomorrow). I usually have some last-minute running around to do including the tradition of going to get a few scratch-off lottery tickets that we scratch off on Christmas Eve. After I pick up the lottery tickets, I head off to the nursing home to pick up my wife's aunt. We load her into my car and head back to the house. My stepson and his father also join us for the dinner as well. After we are done eating we start a fire in the fireplace and open presents. We have a couple of drinks and talk about Christmases gone by as well as current events. Then we take my aunt back to the nursing home and drop her off. We head back to the house get dressed up and head to Midnight Mass.

After midnight mass, I like going out and sitting on our patio by myself for a couple minutes to reflect. I think about what the day has meant to me in the past and what it means to me now. I think of family members and loved ones that have passed away and are not here to celebrate with us this year.

And then, I just sit back and take in the peacefulness of that evening. There's something about the stillness on Christmas Eve that I find very tranquil. Sometimes it's so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. It is so relaxing and so quiet that I wish we lived in a warmer climate, so I could sit out there for hours.