Ever since I was about 12, my mom got a job as a nurse. As a health professional, her care for people does not stop after her clock out time. It comes home with her. Her worrying about certain patients when she is home. She calls the center on her days off to make sure everything is working smoothly so you do not get a phone call about your grandma or grandpa passing away.
My mom works on Christmas Day which means I spend about three hours of Christmas with one of my favorite people in the world.
My family stays up until Christmas Eve where we open all our presents. My mom wakes up minutes before midnight so she gets the maximum amount of sleep so she can be sharp at work. My mom is on her feet all day, running up and down the halls to make sure meds are given, shots are dispersed and families are happy. She has to deal with all the families that did not bother to show up the other 364 days of the year to visit their sick loved ones. The ones that claim they know better than my mom when it comes to taking care of their family member. Just let my mom do her job so she can go home with her family.
People tend to feel sorry for me when I tell them that my mom works on Christmas, but I am not sad. My mom has an important job, I get that. I also get that if it was not for police officers, firefighters, doctors, and nurses to work on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, then other people would have a sucky holiday.
So I want to take the time to thank people like my mom.
Please appreciate people who have to have work on holidays and be away from families. Take the time to be happy about being around your own family on the holidays. Appreciate the time you have with them. My mom sees so many sad days with people who passed away at her job so she knows first hand what it means to be grateful.
I wish we could have those all day celebrations with the Christmas parties and the gingerbread making and all that other basic stuff, but that does not mean that what we have is worse. It is just different and so are we. Which makes this our own tradition.