The title of this post is partially tongue-in-cheek, because I am not big on establishing self-important traditions for myself.  But I am really looking forward to the end of the week, because the Jejune family Christmas tradition involves staying home and not doing much.

My parents live in Ohio, and other members of my non-nuclear family are liberally scattered around the country and half a dozen former outposts of the British Empire.  Pete’s immediate family are in California, Kansas, and Pennsylvania.  And — thank God — nobody on either side insists on regularly assembling, with great pomp, inconvenience, and cost to all, during the December holidays, or on giving any lavish gifts.  So, for Christmas, Pete and I decorate the apartment, burn piney-smelling candles to compensate for the artificial tree that he so politely tolerates, and make a point of doing very, very little.

Not to brag too much about our good fortune at seeing our loved ones so rarely, but it really does make the holidays less of a stress-fest.  I tend to reserve the 24th, 25th, and 26th for wearing my pajamas all day, playing video games, working on various knitting and sewing projects, making up huge portions of brunch food, and conducting baking experiments that I can’t quite seem to justify at other times of the year.  (This year: project nougat.)  This pattern is sometimes augmented by cat-sitting for friends and/or ripping through seasons of TV shows — Christmas 2007 could, for all intents and purposes, be renamed “Veronica Mars Season 2, with a Brief Interlude for Present-Opening.”

Or, if you’re my husband, you celebrate the impending burst of Christ by taking your plastic recorder into the bathroom and practicing ever-so-slightly squeaky renditions of “Greensleeves” in the shower at 7 am.

I don’t know either, dudes.

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