The older I get (and the people around me!) the more I hear people say "it just doesn't seem like Christmas anymore." This year it's no doubt due to the ridiculous circumstances people are being asked to live under, but in general I've been hearing people say this for the better part of the last decade. I think a lot of it has to do with as we get older and the people we loved and grew up with pass away, part of what made Christmas special to us is lost when we lose our loved ones. My grandmother was the reason Christmas felt like Christmas every year. She always had a tree and other decorations up, enjoyed cooking the traditional Christmas dinner and always had Christmas music playing this time of year. After she passed away in 2006, it was never quite the same for me. 

Another aspect of things "feeling" like Christmas that is missing these days is the atmosphere that always followed Black Friday at department stores and shopping malls. All the traffic, crowds, decorations, holiday displays and again, music, made it "feel" like Christmas. This year we are missing all of that due to the pandemic, but over the course of the past decade as online shopping has started to eclipse the sales of physical retailers, it's just another piece of the puzzle that has been discarded.

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