Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

This was a different kind of Christmas. Something had fundamentally shifted. It wasn’t just that we changed the traditions, though that’s where the story starts.

For as long as my kids have been alive, Christmas has happened at our house. My brother usually comes back to the East Coast, and because he’s home—and because I made the same commitment to my children that my mom made to hers—we never traveled on Christmas day. Anyone who wanted to come to our house was welcome, but we stayed put, allowing Christmas magic to reside in TwinLife. Because we were the only ones with grandchildren on either side, everyone congregated at our house. Ten people around the Christmas dinner table. My brother and I in the kitchen. The kids spending time with their grandparents. Year after year.

This year, though, my brother couldn’t make it due to scheduling complications. It was going to leave a big hole in our tradition. As I wrote in another post, I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time, which meant I poured a lot of energy into that holiday. At the same time, I was finishing the semester and launching a new job (I promise I will write that post very soon!). As I faced another holiday that would already be different without my brother, I decided that the best thing I could do was not host Christmas. In addition to giving me time off in the kitchen, if we travelled, I could give each set of grandparents uninterrupted time with the kids. However, I wanted to stay true to TwinLife tradition and wake up on Christmas morning in our home.

So I set the plan in motion.

Last week was full of travel! First we went to my parents’ house, an old farmhouse they’ve lovingly restored over the past (almost) fifty years. My mom decorates for Christmas meticulously. Almost every decoration comes down and is replaced with something holiday-specific. It’s a beautiful, intentional space to be in during the holiday season, and in honor of her past commitment to her own kids to always be home at Christmas, I wanted to wake up at the farm on Christmas Eve. After a white-knuckling drive through a snowstorm, we made it to their house, enjoyed an early Christmas dinner (not cooked by me!) and exchanged presents. We woke up on the 24th to my dad’s roaring fire in the kitchen hearth, and headed home later in the day, ready to celebrate Christmas day as a family of four.

The plan was to stay home all day, hanging out together, watching Stranger Things and football. I was even going to make lasagna for dinner – not something we usually eat on Christmas but a dish that requires much love for my family for me to prepare, a fitting choice for a family-oriented holiday. We were then headed to my in-laws on the 26th for breakfast (also not prepared by me!). However, on the drive back from my parents’, I checked the weather app, and I noticed a snowstorm loomed for the day after Christmas. Because my daughter’s work schedule ramped up starting the 27th, we realized we wouldn’t be able to see my in-laws at all if we stuck to the plan.

So we shifted gears and for the first time in my kids’ lives, we drove somewhere else on Christmas day.

After the kids pulled their teenage selves out of bed, opened presents, and ate french toast (yes, I did cook something on Christmas) and drank our traditional hot mulled apple cider, we hopped in the car and drove to my in-laws’ house. Because they hadn’t planned on us being with them for Christmas dinner, my father-in-law, who was in charge of the meal, decided to combine the small ham they had planned for them with the sausage and eggs they were going to make for us for breakfast. We had a “Committed Pig” protein-packed dinner. There wasn’t a vegetable in sight (unless you count the unbaked potato we decided not to bake)! It was absolutely perfect–mostly because I wasn’t in charge. For the first time in a long time, I got to experience Christmas outside of the kitchen.

What truly made this year different, though, wasn’t where we were or what we ate. It was the time with my kids. I asked them how they felt about splitting the grandparents and not having our “normal” Christmas. They paused. I could tell it felt different to them. It felt different to me. It’s a tradition, and traditions matter. But they also understood that this was the right move in a transitional year, as they enter into adulthood.

“Yeah,” they said. “It’s okay. New traditions.”

And in that moment—and in the way we moved through those days—I realized something. My kids are adults now.

Even last year, when they were seniors in high school, Christmas still carried that familiar childhood energy: surprises, anticipation, the magic of not knowing what was under the tree. This year, all four of us had essentially picked out our own gifts. There weren’t many surprises, and nobody missed them. My kids’ stockings were filled with practical things they needed in their dorm rooms–deoderant, immunity booster, lip balm. The social media meme about the difference between opening socks as a kid and as an adult rang true. My son was genuinely excited to get the socks and sweatpants he had picked out.

The shift from childhood to adulthood was palpable. The new traditions made it visible, but it was the underlying change—the way we filled the time, the way we made decisions together, the way joy showed up differently—that made this Christmas feel fundamentally different.

And, in its own quiet way, just right.

We were back in our own home before bedtime on Christmas day, and we spent the next day filling time individually. I did end up cooking the lasagna that night. Normally I would sneak some spinach into it, but because I hadn’t gone to the grocery store to prepare to host Christmas and our CSA had ended the week before, there was no green to hide among the cheese. We didn’t have vegetables. Just layers of pasta, sauce, and cheese.

My husband said it was a particularly delicious lasagna.

And that compliment felt like the perfect closing note to this different kind of Christmas.