One of the weirdest phenomena of the entire pandemic is the cocoonlike effect it’s had on us now that we’re re-entering a semi-normal life, and nothing drives this home harder than the holidays. The last time we had “normal,” I had an elementary school student and two middle schoolers. Then we had this limbo period where things went on, but since we only had ourselves as measuring sticks, not much seemed to change.

Now, suddenly, I’m keenly aware of the fact that I have one middle schooler, one that’s almost done with middle school, and one that’s almost halfway finished with high school.

When the outside world shut down on A, he was preparing for his eighth-grade dance. Now, he’s starting to prepare to take the test to get his learner’s permit. He also casually mentioned that we really should start visiting colleges next summer, while we are planning our vacations.

While I’m trying to pump the brakes, he’s determined to make up for lost time, which just makes everything seem like it’s going that much faster.

As the kids started putting their Christmas wish lists together, I realized that I miss last year’s isolation, as they were much less influenced by the fads that are raging among their friends. The wish list didn’t change every hour, and I didn’t have to worry about Santa bringing something that was too much the same, or God forbid, too much different from whatever their friends were getting.

Since we weren’t going anywhere or doing anything last year, Santa seemed to bring gifts that were a lot more useful and necessary. I’m hoping Santa learned his lesson last year that less can definitely be more, and experiences are much more meaningful that all the stuff.

The kids are also just not that into doing all the traditional holiday “fun” that we’ve always done. The past few years, we’ve taken a quick overnight trip to Kalahari in the Poconos, as a mini-pre-Christmas vacation/break. Seeing the festive decorations, spending the night in a hotel, and the weekend with friends always put us in a cheery mood, and energized to tackle December.

This year, A opted out of the trip, not wanting to miss sports practices, and preparation time for his upcoming play auditions, and Christmas concerts. While I could respect that, heading out with our smaller party just didn’t have the same festive feel to it, and the other two decided to call it quits long before we had planned to leave.

Knowing that December is going to be a hectic month, the WH and I tried to get our act together and get our Christmas tree over Thanksgiving weekend, about two weeks earlier than usual. We did manage to keep up our annual traditions while finding the perfect tree: trying to find the fattest tree, taking our annual family picture with the tree, getting aggravated when we had to take the picture 20 times because trying to get five people and two dogs to look at the camera simultaneously is impossible, and of course, uttering a few choice curse words during the actual felling of the tree.

Of course, we topped it off with hot chocolates for the ride home, and we all agreed we’d found the most perfect tree ever.

The only problem is that since the tree got home and installed, it’s been sitting in the corner, bare. It’s been a week, and the arguments about who is going to drag the decoration totes up from the basement have raged. It seems that everyone wants the tree decorated, but no one is ambitious enough to round up the ornaments and lights to do it.

I know once the totes are out of the basement, everyone will fall in line and our tree will be bedazzled in no time, but getting over that hump and making the haul just isn’t in me right now.

I have no doubt that we will get the cookies baked, and the tree decorated, and the presents purchased and wrapped, but this year, compared to last year, has me asking myself how much of this stuff we really need to do. I know the answer is “all of it” because I’m acutely aware of how little of my kids’ childhood is really left, and we will drag this out as long as we possibly can, but I also feel like a few unimportant corners may start to get cut.

One thing that definitely won’t be getting cut are the holiday concerts. While I may not be looking forward to much else except resting and recharging, Christmas music always manages to chase my Grinch away. Music was one of the few things that my kids were really able to stay committed to over the last two years, whether it was through virtual lessons, or spending time practicing just because they were bored and had nothing else to do, but they definitely missed being part of the larger band and performing with their friends.

Since we’re still opting out of a lot of holiday get-togethers and parties, concerts will be one of the few times my kids get to dress up in their fancy clothes and be with their friends in a festive setting.

Christmas 2021 is definitely going to be unique. A better unique than Christmas 2020 was, but still not quite exactly what I was expecting Christmas to be with a house full of teenagers. Maybe it’s a good year to do away with some of the older traditions and start some new ones. Or, maybe I will end up trying to squeeze out one more year of every single old one and try to go back to Christmas 2019.

I do know that right now, I’m probably the only one in my house obsessing over this. The rest of my family is busy making their Christmas lists and reminding me what cookies we “have to” make. They’ve been able to get back into enjoying the moment and being optimistic about the future.

I feel like I’ve just become too aware of how quickly this time is passing, and also how quickly we can lose things like family gatherings, and our good health.

At least the holidays are a time of hope and good cheer. I can always hope that those things are contagious!

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.