Missing Holiday Traditions?

I'm sitting here in an empty computer lab, surrounded by reminders that the holidays are almost here. Christmas used to be my favorite time of year when I was young. In fact, I would get so excited about Santa that every Christmas Eve I would spend 3/4 of the night in the bathroom puking my brains out. I am sure that my mother appreciated not being able to wrap presents and put them under the tree until 4am!

Now that I am grown and have children of my own I really wanted to make Christmas a big deal. It hasn't really worked out for me so far. With my ex-husband it was always more important to spend time either at his parents or his brothers house for Christmas - seriously curtailing my abilities to instill any family traditions of our own. So when I got divorced and subsequently remarried I told my self it was going to be different this time around. And oh, how desperately I wanted that. My new husband is totally on board with Christmas being a time for OUR family, so I do appreciate that. What I hadn't counted on was life throwing such curveballs at us. Curveballs like unemployment, losing our home at thanksgiving time, or our children being 2500 miles away. Each year it seems like some other wrench gets thrown in my perfect plans.

I want to make dozens of cookies with my daughter, decorate the house, have Christmas dinner with our whole family. I want a normal holiday with all the trimmings.... and I want my whole family there to enjoy it with.  What would you have different about YOUR holidays? We'd love to hear what you would do different, or what advice you might have to make the holidays extra bright for those who are struggling this year.