So I survived my first Christmas night without family or kids. Actually, it wasn't so bad. I had my kids earlier in the day (and their Dad too, who behaved himself), and we opened presents together. That's my favorite part, watching them open presents. We did our big family get together at my sister's on Christmas Eve this year instead of the 25th. My daughter sang "Huron Carol" for everybody- a beautiful Traditional Canadian Christmas carol.

So back to the 25th. I skipped dinner because i ate so much the night before and i wasn't hungry in the least. I drove downtown, there was hardly any traffic (yippee). Dropped off a gift at the local youth shelter. I've actually never been there before. I kind of had a vision in my head of a bunch of 16-20 year olds hanging out outside the shelter. It turns out I was right, with the one exception being Christmas night. So the place was deserted. The kids had just had a wonderful Christmas meal, and were all inside watching some big game on TV.

Then I drove over to the big outdoor skating rink by city hall and put my skates on for the first time in about five years. Ouch. My feet started hurting after about one minute. Anyway, I stayed for about fifteen minutes. The fresh air and the crowds (not too crazy though) were nice. The whole place was beautiful, all done up in lights. Then I went for a walk but everything was deserted. Lights off in most places, not even a place open to get a hot chocolate. Started getting cold, so I drove back home. By that time, if we HAD done the usual Christmas tradition, it would have been over by then anyway, so I kind of got into the mode of "Christmas is now officially over and I survived.". I think I would have been horribly depressed if I had stayed in all night.

So today, I get to do whatever I want. I could have gone skiing with my kids and their Dad but i just don't want to be around him and i could also use the break. I actually went for a run this morning - probably the last time THAT will happen on boxing day! I felt soooooo much better. Got a bit of my energy back. It's a sunny day, the roads are clear, and the snowy section I had to go on was hard packed. So it was all good.