For only the second (third?) time in my teaching career I am neither traveling nor hosting family for my two week Christmas break. One year my husband was consulting, and had a gig across the country between Christmas and New Years. There might have been another year in there when we stayed home and no one came to visit, but if so, I can't remember it.
In recent years, we've traveled much more than we've had visitors. My brother and sister in law have six and seven children each. Even when we had two foster children, it was much easier for our family to find place to sleep in their homes than vice versa. My parents usually come up for Christmas when we're not planning to be with my in-laws, but I'm glad they are choosing their health over holiday travel this year.
This year, we are adhering to government guidelines and having Christmas at home, just the four of us. My husband is taking the second half of his sabbatical this month because we couldn't travel last summer when we had originally planned to visit Europe, Australia, or my dad's native Peru. So the four of us are home, with no schedule to adhere to for the next two weeks (my husband and college student have five and three weeks, respectively, but my high school student and I only have two weeks off).
Today is the first official day we have all had off, though the break mentality did begin on Friday when I drove to school to pick up Christmas gifts delivered by my students' families. Friday also included my virtual staff party, complete with a door dash delivered lunch and Zoom games. The party was completely different from previous years, and not as much fun for me, a decided introvert in large group settings. But my school's "sunshine committee" did an exceptional job given the constraints of 2020.
I'm doing my best to enjoy this low key holiday season. I did all of my shopping online, mostly on Thanksgiving weekend. The delivery boxes stacked up under my desk until this weekend when I finally wrapped everything and set up a little indoor holiday display. With the addition of two kittens to our home this month, we opted not to bring our whole artificial tree inside. I was worried that the kittens would trash our display overnight, but so far they have totally ignored it.
Staying at home makes for a much more relaxing break for me. I like not worrying about when I will grade the assignments that were turned in during the last days of last week. I felt this over Thanksgiving as well, when I was able to write my report card comments from my at home work space without worrying about how much time they were taking or who I was ignoring while I was working.
It's only Monday, and I am not sure how I'm going to fill my time over these next two weeks. I have an itch to travel, and would love to have a tropical locale booked, on the calendar to look forward to in the near-ish future. But sitting with a napping kitten in my lap, thinking about holiday movies to watch, and the possibility of baking some ill-shaped holiday cookies this week feels quite relaxing.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, I am blessed. I am truly lucky that the biggest disruption to my life has been to curtail travel. Teaching from home is a pretty big difference, but it's not a disruption.
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