I'm not really a Grinch...I promise

It's here.  That time of the year where I swear off retail stores and regular scheduled programming (unless it's the 24 hours of A Christmas Story or Elf) and retreat to my Internet Hideway and Amazon for all my Christmas gifts.

I promise...I don't really hate Christmas.  I hate what Christmas has become.

No, I'm not talking about Giftmas or losing the meaning of Christmas.  That is a topic I refuse to entertain on my blog.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are especially hard for me because I remember what they used to be for my family.

From Thanksgiving until January 2, my once close knit family used to spend so much time together.  We put the meaning in EAT, DRINK, and BE MERRY.  Winter was the best time of the year for me, my sisters and our host of cousins.

Fast forward ten years and what once was a large, happy, slightly dysfunctional family is completely broken.  We're spread apart all over the world, we barely talk to each other, and cousins don't even know each other. I've never even met any of my cousins born in the last 7 years.

Tragic, I know.  Some families come together and grow stronger when tragedy strikes.  Mine didn't.  Maybe it was too much too fast and we just couldn't handle it or maybe my grandmother really was the glue that held the family together as she always used to say.

I don't know.  But I miss my family.  I wish I knew a way to bring us all together, at least once, to have Christmas dinner at least.

But until then...there's going to be at least 10 NBA games coming on Christmas day and Pizza Hut delivers.