Is it just me, or have the holidays seemed to sneak up on us when we weren’t looking this year?
I’m finding it hard to believe I’m sitting at my desk a week before Thanksgiving, penning my last Editor’s Note for 2023.
Where has the year gone? And why does it feel like we’ve been hurtling headlong through the months this time around?
I know for everyone time is a matter of perspective, but for me, 2023 seems to have flown by.
It’s been a year of change. My hairdresser - and good friend of many years - sold her salon and semi-retired. If you’re a woman, you know what it means to have a change in how your hair gets done. My son graduated from Westfield State University and has begun his job search, upending our routine for the past five years. Reminder Publishing moved from its 280 North Main Street offices in East Longmeadow - where I’ve had nearly the same desk for most of the 28 years I’ve been with the company, to a new space on the campus of Cartamundi on Shaker Road. I’m still figuring out how to live in my new desk space and more than once I’ve nearly pulled into the old North Main Street driveway on my way to the new offices.
My Executive Editor, Payton North, once wrote in her opinion columns for our weekly newspapers that she is someone who embraces and looks forward to change. I cope, and adjust, but I’m not one who is always enthusiastic when situations alter.
And that brings us to the holidays.
My family is the entertainers for our clan. I put on the holidays, if you know what I mean. ... Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas - they all take place in my dining room or back yard.
This year, however, my usually full Thanksgiving table will have only six. My widowed nephew has met someone, and he’s introducing her family to his mother and his brother’s family at a Thanksgiving meal. We’ll get to catch up with everyone later, but it won’t feel quite the same. Still. I’m grateful that we will all connect, even if not all at the same time.
As I write this, I know Christmas will be different as well, as some relatives will be traveling and not at our usual gathering. And so wraps 2023.
I recently read in an e-newsletter I follow called The Ethel, that coping with change and loss is the price we all pay in life, especially a long one. The author talked about the grief of losing the old and familiar, and then embracing and finding joy in the new, making different memories as situations change. That’s an attitude I’m going to try and adopt in 2024. I won’t call it a New Year’s Resolution - those are too easily broken. I’ll just call it an attitude adjustment.
If you find yourself in the situation of looking to make some new memories this holiday season, I hope you find inspiration in Prime’s annual listing of Holiday Happenings, our gift to you, our readers. You’ll also find suggestions for thoughtful gift-giving to older relatives in different living situations, and advice on combating colds and flu as we move into the indoor germ season.
Whatever you do this holiday season, dear readers, I hope it makes good memories.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t offer an apology to Anna Symington and Donna Salo, the women in Prime’s November feature story on Veterans Dragon Boat USA, before we close out 2023. I got their hometowns wrong; Anna lives in South Hadley and Donna in East Longmeadow. I also mistakenly wrote that both were breast cancer survivors, only Anna was, Donna was a supporter on the dragon boat team when they met. And Veterans Dragon Boat USA didn’t become a nonprofit until several years after 2019. Years of writing experience is no excuse for bad notetaking and editing. I am truly sorry for these errors.
As always, thanks for reading,. Looking forward to 2024!
Debbie Gardner
dgardner@thereminder.com
