Holidaze with the Twenty-Somethings

Because when laughter fills the walls of my apartment, and the fireplace makes everything feel toasty -- these are the nights that make it all worth it.

When we were kids, holidays felt like mystical times where everyone from out of town comes together, the house is packed to the brim, food is always cooking, and most importantly the laughs fill the house and shake it bare. When the holidays pass, and everyone leaves, the warmth and love remain. But in our twenties, holidays feel so different from when we were kids. At holidays and family gatherings, there's always the “I'd rather be anywhere but here” crew, the outside crew of cousins who choose to go out instead of hanging around the house with everyone they see once a year, then there’s the group that's just too young to do anything so they’re somewhere watching TV, and then there’s the other crew, of which I am a long-standing community member -- the haven’t quite figured out how to be single-singles crew.

This time is weird, the older cousins we seemed so close to you once before are now the whole ass adult parents of your cousins, you’ve now assumed the role of the cool uncle/auntie, or you’re ignoring them altogether. It dawned on me this year that so much of my family, the cousin who used to run around with me and catch up at Thanksgiving, now have big families of their own, and so they have their own traditions to create and begin. It feels disjointed, sometimes unexpected, and always sad - to see how fast and slow change can happen, and how hard it then becomes to get everyone to come back together again. At twenty-something, it’s this weird phase of being single, having fun, but also being unattached and not having your own traditions just yet. Living in this odd stage, where you still want to feel connected and a part of something like the traditions you grew up sheltered within. At the same time, the hard reality is maybe your family isn’t as connected as it once was..

Every year, I know to prepare my answers for the inevitable “Where’s your boyfriend?” and the “It’s not time for you to have kids yet?” and of course the occasional uncle who has literally no idea how old you are, and to them you’ll always be a toddler running around the house. But this year, I didn’t get those questions, and no it is not because my family has lost hope in my dating life, even if I have. But it is because, at some point, the fun uncles stopped traveling into town, and the aunties who still care about your next chapter in life honestly got too old to risk COVID in cramped houses with far too many people. To be completely honest, the holidays almost feel like they suck in these years. But I recently thought to myself, who says we can’t make new traditions in this era in our lives?

For myself, I try to fill the holidays with Friendsgiving’s and seasonal cocktails, ramen nights, holiday movies, Haitian hot chocolate, and matching pajamas, a ridiculous amount of Christmas decor, and of course family and friends.

My traditions may not look like setting up the christmas tree with my children and husband, as Hallmark would like it, but I think having red wine, listening to vinyls, and convincing my friends to do the physical labor of getting all my Christmas decor and tree from storage -- sounds just as warm, cozy, and fun to me.

Because when laughter fills the walls of my apartment and the fireplace makes everything feel toasty -- these are the nights that make it all worth it. When the season is done, I look back on how much love was felt and shared during each of these little memories and I think I may have found my own little pocket of time where for the few rare months in these twenty-somethings, we can all be the big kids who indulge our inner child just a bit more than usual.