8. Holiday Changes
“There’s definitely a shift from food and presents to just having everybody here because it’s really infrequent in our household to have everybody home at the same time. And I do envision that there’s going to be holidays...where our kids aren’t here or some are not here...”
In this short podcast episode, we discuss how the holiday season has evolved over the years, from the excitement of gift giving to the importance of spending quality time with loved ones. We explore the challenges of finding meaningful presents for adult children and the delicate balance between tradition and adapting to new circumstances. With children growing older, we have to navigate the complexities of holiday celebrations and the shifting dynamics of family gatherings. We share our desire for more quality time together, and the possibility of new additions at future holiday gatherings. Through it all, we want to embrace the fleetingness of this unique stage in life and focus on what truly matters during the holidays.
This is our last podcast episode for 2023. We will be taking a holiday break until after the new year.
We wish you a wonderful holiday season filled with love and joy.
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Christina Donovan: Are you between the ages of 40 and 60? Do you feel the need for change in your life but are not sure why or when or how? Do you feel a pressure of running out of time? Do you spend most of your time doing things that are not important to you anymore? These are all symptoms or characteristics of middlescence. And this is our podcast, messy middlescence.
Tara Bansal: Hi, this is Tara. Today's episode is a little different. It's not an interview, it's just Tina and I talking about the holidays, a gift structure. Tina recently heard about how the holidays have changed over the years and a story about Santa. So if you still have little ones, don't listen to this episode where they can hear it. A focus of messy middle essence is about this unique phase or stage of our life. Life has its seasons and for me this is an important thing to remember, that things will keep changing, to appreciate and recognize the fleetingness of this particular time. Sometimes you don't know how long this season will last. So try to enjoy and appreciate the good and realize that the not so good will not last forever. And you may miss or laugh about the not so positive parts someday. The holidays are stressful and busy. My wish for you is to remember what is most important to you and what you truly want during this holiday season. And I hope you get to enjoy it. Think about what is worthwhile and what you maybe can let go of. We jump right into Tina and my conversation.
Christina Donovan: We were talking about Christmas and how things have evolved with gift giving and kids. One of the women was saying that her family has evolved to each of her. Adult kids get four gifts. They get something they need something they want something to wear and something to read, which I guess is you're smiling like you've heard that before. I never heard that before.
Tara Bansal: I've heard a lot of families that do that. And I like it. I like it, too. It's very specific and it kind of helps, I guess, put some parameters, some structure to the gift giving once kids don't really need.
Christina Donovan: Adult kids don't really need anything really, probably. Or if they do, it's too big for you to give them for Christmas. But even, like with New Year's, I know here on college Hill, if parents who have kids that are away are home, they want to spend new years with their kids. And some kids have plans and some kids don't. I don't know, it gets kind of messy, like navigating New Year's with adult children, too.
Tara Bansal: Yeah, New Year's is hard and part of it is now my boys are old enough that they want to stay up and we've never celebrated with another family or anything like that. But I feel like I'm now old enough that I don't really get right and I want to go to sleep. So one year Alex and I went to bed, and then nimit and Nathan woke us up, but that didn't really go over well. I think Alex had a hard time waking up, as did I, or I had a hard time going back to sleep. The whole gift thing, as your kids get older, Christmas is so fun when they're young and the excitement and basically I feel like they like anything, at least my kids did. And it gets harder and harder.
Christina Donovan: A lot of times you feel almost like you're buying off a list, you know what I mean? Which isn't as fun in terms of surprises. Right? I think it's fun to have some surprises. Yeah, I do too. But that can be hard. Yeah. If they don't like it, they don't want to return it, because. I don't know. Yeah, it's hard and you don't want to waste money, they don't want to hurt your feelings. And that, I think, is part of, to me, the hard part of that, gift giving and navigating it just to get gifts that are of value, that aren't a gazillion dollars. I don't know. So many gifts now, I feel like you can't even get for under $100 is really difficult unless you're willing to spend thousands and thousands on Christmas gifts. Yeah, it's fun to have some small gifts that you do like, but it gets, I think, harder to find. Yeah. Tara Bansal: Do you like receiving books? You read so much that
Christina Donovan: I do, yeah. I never have a problem receiving a book. How about you?
Tara Bansal: I think what I like the best is getting book recommendations. But if it comes as a book, then I like that. And I always feel like I can then give it to someone else or share it.
Christina Donovan: That's sort of the way I am. I mean, if I have a book that I like, I just feel then that I know people that might like it too and I can pass it on. Or if I really like it, I would keep it. I like to keep some books. Know, you can go back to.
Christina Donvan: Do your boys have lists this year for Christmas?
Tara Bansal: Not really yet.
Christina Donovan: Does Alex still believe in Santa Claus?
Tara Bansal: No. I never told you that tragic story. Maybe you did. I don't remember. I would think it was very traumatic, honestly, because last year, and Alex was saying, this is the first year we don't believe in Santa. Are we still going to get the same number of gifts? But last year he was like, I want to know if there is Santa Claus. And I was like, do you really want to know? And he's like, yes, I need to know if Santa Claus is real or not. And it was a Saturday, we were eating lunch and I was like, if you really want to know, I believe Santa is real, but it is the, it's, you know, Nimit and I, your mom and dad giving the know as Santa the spirit of Santa and the spirit of Santa, and he just gets hysterical and is bawling and crying and he's like, I wish I didn't know. And Nimit gets all mad at me. He's like, why did you tell him? I can't believe you told him scenario, though. You couldn't really lie to him at that point. But it was an ugly bad scene. Then I think I started crying and nimit was mad at me.
Christina Donovan: Yeah, that sounds really rough.
Tara Bansal: It was really rough, yeah. So that's our not good Santa Claus story.
Christina Donovan: Funny. I mean, none of my kids ever asked and I think we never told them. They just kind of evolved out of it.
Tara Bansal: That's what happened with Nathan. I'm trying to think if he ever actually asked, but it was kind of like, you figure knowledge, that one. Poor Alex, that sounds. I mean, I'll never forget, in preschool I was sitting know, like, parents came in and the kid at my table is like, you know, there's no such thing as Santa Claus, it's just the parents. And I'm like, I mean, this is like three or four year olds. And I'm just like, I didn't know what to say.
Christina Donovan: Were they testing you or did they know for sure? Were they feeling you out to get info from somebody that wasn't their parents?
Tara Bansal: No, but this child was like my parents told me, but I didn't want them to ruin it for everyone else. I can't even remember what I did, but it was not fun. And that's the thing, you hear it at school and with kids and everybody finds. But you never really know until your parents, I think you know what I mean.
Christina Donovan: There's always that for every kid in elementary school says he doesn't exist, there's another kid that says, I think he exists. My parents haven't told me. That sounds rough, though. With Alex it was, but at least now you know, it does simplify stuff. Makes, I think, Christmas Eve not quite as stressful, just getting gifts, like hiding them and just sort of, if they don't like it, there is a little bit. You don't have to call Santa to return it. That's true.
I mean, going back to what I was thinking for like thanksgiving was very much like we alternated and we went down to Oleta and it was really fun and special and it got harder and harder because people had kids and travel. But I'm glad we got to do that when we did. But I still miss it, too. I mean, this past thanksgiving, it was just the five of us with our parents, mom and dad, just because they live close to here. Seven isn't an insignificant number, but it seems like nothing compared to when we had our larger family together. And not everyone always came, but there was always a pretty big crowd.
Tara Bansal: And you always went down for the whole week, right?
Christina Donovan: We would, yeah. I mean, it used to be for us, we would travel for Thanksgiving either to one set of in laws or the other, and then we would always be home for Christmas. But yeah, now it just seems like we're home for both. Partly because of our high school students, but you just take a week off because of activities at the high school around that, around Thanksgiving. We've been home now for a while, but I do miss being in a larger group for Thanksgiving.
Tara Bansal: I do, too. And once you have kids, to me it's hard. We traveled pre having kids on the off thanksgivings. We would go down to mom and Dad's and that was so fun. Yeah. And I love that we get to go spend Christmas with you at your house. Yeah. I love that we're all together for Christmas, but I guess I kind of hope that sort of, at least with Thanksgiving that maybe things eventually will, there'll be more of us getting together in larger groups in the future. I mean, I do think the thing that's hard is a lot of people don't want to travel. Like, none of us are really close geographically. I mean, clumps of us are. But I think unless you're willing to fly around Thanksgiving, it makes it hard for all of us to get together and that will probably remain a barrier. You don't have school as a limiting. You can try to travel different times a little bit. Sort of like what you guys did. I mean, you traveled Tuesday through Saturday. Yeah. It didn't sound great, but it didn't sound awful.
Tara Bansal: It was not. I mean, it was busy. I was amazed at how many people were at the Atlanta airport at 06:00 a.m. But one. It's Atlanta and it's Thanksgiving weekend to be expected. I'm grateful everything went smoothly. So that was good, made it much better. It's when travel gets messed up, it's no fun. Anything else on how holidays have changed for you guys?
Christina Donovan: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a shift from food and presents to being just having everybody here because it's now in our household just really infrequent to have everybody home at the same time. And I do envision that there's going to be holidays, whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, where our kids aren't here or some are not here. And I mean, I think that's something that, you know, is coming and you just sort of have to kind of mentally prepare for. But those will be hard too, when that happens, I think.
Tara Bansal: I agree. Yeah. That's a long way off for me. Yeah. It's not that way. Not for you. You have adult yeah. And then of course, there's always the,
Christina Donovan: I mean, eventually, hopefully, there will be other people that join you for Thanksgiving or Christmas. We're far away from that in our household. But I have friends that had a girlfriend or a boyfriend come home for Thanksgiving with their child this past break. And I mean, that's exciting. That is exciting. Yeah. That's moving forward to more people. I mean, is there anything about Christmas that you would change right now, given your boy's age?
Tara Bansal: I don't love all the gifts. And so I asked Nimit, at least for even us, not to exchange gifts. And I even asked the boys, would you guys give up gifts to do a trip? And they both were like, absolutely not. And part of it is they kind of know we're still going to do trips. So it's like, why would they say that? But no, they still look forward to gifts and are excited for that. And I wasn't talking about not doing gifts for the boys, but just part of me would rather not have to try to figure out gifts for everyone and just to be able to focus on being together and enjoying that. And even the build up to Christmas, I feel like is so busy and not wanting that just to have it feel more relaxed and focused on, as you said, on being together. But my boys are still, they're ten and twelve.
Christina Donovan: Oh, yeah, that's a big age for Christmas, is still about presents, I think, at that age. And they're excited for that. Yeah. Well, good. And that must mean there are things they want or thinking they want.
Tara Bansal: Most of the things they want are games like cornhole or hockey sauce. And it's a little bit of like, how many games can we have? But we do play them. I guess I'd rather do that than have just like, more junk. Yeah. In some ways they're not easy to buy for because I think they kind of are particular. But I do like having some surprises. So keeping up with the surprises are the hard part. And I feel like that's where you usually help us because you had boys.
Christina Donovan: Although, I don't know, I do feel like just gift giving in our society has become more difficult because so many people have so much already. That becomes hard to find something that genuinely is surprising or exciting or special. And granted, that's probably within a certain class of people, but yeah, I do think kids just generally have more. This isn't like this year. I mean, my kids were that way when they were little, too. I think it's harder to buy for kids and adults now than it used to be. Yeah. I mean, basically we have what we want and so we're lucky enough in that way. Yeah, we are too, I think. But at the same time, you do want it to feel special and thought to feel special. Yeah. I feel like our best conversations and thoughts are not recorded, but hopefully that will change and we'll get better at this.
Tara Bansal: We will be taking a holiday break, so this is our last episode for a little while until the new year, but please come back because there will be a lot more coming up in 2024. Happy holidays and wishing you only the very best. For show notes and other information about our podcast, please go to our website, messymidalescence.com. If you enjoyed listening, please share with others and come back for more.