Boomers: Being Everything We Ever Were At Christmastime
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Okay, we baby boomers aren't what we used to be. But then, who is?
At Christmas time there is a tendency to reflect on past years, and part of that for us boomers might involve a pining for the younger bodies of our earlier incarnations, along with the greater energy and more flexibility both physically and mentally that many of us used to have.
Christmas can be bittersweet in that respect. For many of us, staying up all night for parties and shopping has a flattening effect that lasts longer than it did back in the day.
We're more likely to end our day watching the sunset than staying up for the sunrise. Being up late might mean 11 p.m. rather than two in the morning, and the bags under our eyes next day linger longer. Hey, maybe they don't go away at all.
Feasting and eating gooey holiday traditional desserts can make for their own late nights, but it's not from heartfelt warmth, it's heartburn. And eggnog and fancy mixed drinks can burn a hole in your stomach.
Got a favorite outfit you pull out for the holidays every year? Does it seem to need more "letting out" around the middle when you're pulling it out of the closet? The get-up that used to make you look like a star might be making you look more burned out.
Holiday movies you watched with your kids when we were all younger are still wonderful, but the "remember when's" that accompany them are getting to be longer and longer ago. Even your kids seem old.
"Once upon a time" seems to reflect more on the remoteness of your own youth than on the eternal Christmas stories of Charles Dickens.
Christmas Past? Forsooth! Christmas Present is making you feel more like your grandmother and Christmas Yet To Come may bring a shudder rather than big hopes for the future.
But being a baby boomer has always been accompanied by dichotomy and paradox.
Alright, in some ways we may feel older. Alot older. But in other ways, we are still the kids we were when Christmas was young(er).
We may be 50ish or so, but we're also five. And 15. And ... you get the direction this is going in.
And every Christmas is, well, every Christmas. Every Christmas you ever had.
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