Our Christmas was different: We cooked for each other (2 of our kids, separately, and us) and exchanged containers for eating later. A pair and a trio (including partners) visited for 1/2 hour spells, all always masked (one set with a porch screen between us and jackets on). It felt Christmasy as we had a slight frost this morning (2/10 of a degree F!), colder tonight.
I remember my 1972 Christmas in Sydney. They were having a hot spell (40C). Bondi Beach was beautiful, but the sand was too hot to stand on and a shark kept us on the shore... Christmas dinner (made by Aussies) was 'everything we were used to, only cold'.
One Christmas in NZ I hitch hiked from Dunedin northwards. I hoped to get to Christchurch, but went way further. Lots of mostly short rides (14, IIRC) and seldom even 5 minutes between them. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to leave a stranger on the road. The first ride was from a nurse taking presents to patients at the mental health hospital just north of town and the last was with a family coming from Dinner (capital "D") with the wife's family and headed for Dinner with the husband's. That man sure did talk, and he described every dish they'd had and the specialties he was looking forward to. (Wife and 2 kids were silent.) I never told anybody that day that I was fasting; it was easy to be with my hosts in their various styles of joy and thanksgiving. It was a truly blessed day for me! It ended 'early' as I was left off at a totally rural highway intersection, and I decided to stop. Beside the road was a copse of trees in which I camped, and a large stream/small river, cobble-bedded. I meditated in the stream (seated, with water up to my mid-chest) for an hour or so, during that sunny endless summer evening.
I know, it's Boxing Day now for most of you!
Find (and share) the blessings,
Tor