Christmas without kids

So it begins...What you may ask has inspired me to begin to write. I am not a creative soul. I guess turning 50 this year has made me think about life and the holidays always remind me of what is missing in my life and how I sometimes feel invisible.

I am a married woman in Illinois, happy and content marriage I might add, married for 11 years. I have no kids. That is where the invisible part comes in. When you have no children, you are left out of a lot of things. No Santa Claus on Christmas morning; my 2 beagles, my 2 cats and my husband don't care. No Christmas concerts at school, nobody to take to see the pretty Christmas lights, nobody excited to cut down the tree, no one to bake cookies with or hang decorations for. My family lives far away in California, my husband's family is scattered. My friends are busy with their kids!!! Oh and I am a retail slob so I have to work at Christmas with customers who are, let me say, less than merry!

I wanted kids but couldn't have them. My husband's kids are grown and live away. So Christmas and the holidays have become a chore to endure every year because everything is geared toward "families." So my inspired writing comes from a shower thought. (Who doesn't think best in the shower?) My husband and I, the beagles and the cats....We are a family too!

So our traditions center around what we are going to eat and when and my constant discussions about when my husband will stop wanting toys so we can live on his income and I can quit the retail slavery. Ho Ho Ho!

I have decided to use this forum to process out loud how Christmas and other family stuff can fit into a family with no kids in it. Don't post nauseating comments about adoption or how we can be with others who have kids. I don't want to entertain other people's kids. I want to find traditions for families who have no kids or talk about ways to make that happen. I do my share of "giving back" which by the way has become a nauseating phrase itself. I want to find a place to fit in a world that wasn't made for a 50 year old with no kids.

We are a family, too!