Well, I was about to tell JimmyC that yes, I feel that Valentine's day/Mother's Day etc ARE shoved down our throats too - you should have heard us all bursting into tears over every Father's Day commercial for several YEARS after Dad was killed by terrorists- but WYSIWYG makes a good point, so I'm stopping.Oddly enough, I'm allowed to put None under religion when in hospitals here, but then I get several nursies in quick procession asking me what I really mean. Not to mention that one of the most helpful people in the whole place, during the long stay trying not to have the twins too prematurely, was the hospital chaplain who just dropped by to chat every so often. I found myself not wanting to lean on her because she was the chaplain, then I decided that was too bigoted of me and since she was being so helpful, who was I to object to her job title.

But you know, after all this explaining the logistics, the more I think about it, the more I think that I want to keep it in the "dead of winter" (which I know isn't till Feb but emotionally that's almost Spring) to bring in the midwinter festival idea of celebrating the ken of the coming of Spring, which (as I've said earlier) is to me the thing worth celebrating WITH the family celebration thing. We aren't JUST celebrating getting together with all of us and giving presents; there is something about it being at the very end of the year that makes it, well, spiritual, if I may use that term in this company. Although I think it POSSIBLE that there may be a 3-day period we could all manage to take off, and if we didn't do it in Dec then we'd maybe get even more family, as one of my sisters goes to Tasmania for winter break and she and her daughter never make it to our celebration. But it wouldn't be the celebration I'm imagining if it left out the (my) reason for the evergreens.