The holidays aren’t what they used to be

The holidays aren’t what they used to be for me…

I remember the holidays were about hanging out with my brother, while trying to avoid our parents, drinking and complaining about life. We would take turns bitching about our respective situations and laughed at each other for how screwed up the other one was. Then we would always start making fun of prior years’ presents our mother got for us and how horribly we faked liking them. Then one year I moved out of state and those family times ceased. It wasn’t until years later I went back, having since starting a family of my own, and I couldn’t begin to explain how different it was. My parents got old. My dad’s hair everywhere was white, not brown like it was when I left or salt and pepper but white and mostly gone. My mom was never a woman of much size but upon my return stood before me a smaller woman of less than one hundred pounds with the early stages of emphysema. And my brother got fat and almost neutered from life it seems since getting married and having kids of his own. No longer was he that shit talking sibling but now a man facing difficulties that all men face. It was my introduction, my life lesson, that the time you spend with people you care about is finite and those people will not always be the same. People get old, medical problems start surfacing, and at some point they start to decay.

Fast forward some 10 years after that trip to the one my family took this year. My father now gets lost in his own home at times, telling me the same three stories while chuckling at the same parts each time, and sharing with me all the things failing on his body. My mother now weighing in around ninety five pounds, doesn’t eat much, always tired, and never without a Kleenex to spit into because the emphysema is to that point. And my brother, I wish I got to be around him more because when it's just he and I with a 12 pack the old him comes back; he laughs more then.

I wish I was more in tune with this when I was younger because I think I would have invested more of my time around them but I have a firm respect now for time and the importance of time spent with people you care about. So to that end this year I am putting the business on pause for a few days and taking some time with my family to try and turn up the Christmas spirit in my home as the later part of this year has been a little rough so things of that nature tend to be the first to be sacrificed. Aside from the occasional email response we are hitting pause midday Wednesday and will be kicking things back on the day after Christmas. Thank you to all for your support over these years. We hope to bring back a lot more in 2023 and get back to growing as a business.