My family has always made a point of going to a movie during the holiday season when my siblings and I are home from college. I do not know when it started, but it has become tradition. While we always go on Christmas Day, this year we also went during Thanksgiving break.

I am from a small town in northwest Wisconsin. I do not know if this is just a small-town thing or not, but where I come from families go to the movies during school breaks, especially families with college-aged kids. Maybe it is because there is nothing else to do.

Our theater is not like the ones in the “big city.” Instead of nice plush seats, we have to settle for the small, squeaky, cramped chairs. Instead of a relatively clean floor you may find in a newer multiplex, our theater floor is crusted over with years upon years of spilled pop and candy, no doubt some of it from me in my younger years.

I do know I will never get cold in our theater though; I am always reminded of the heater since at times the sound of the movie is drowned out by the blowing of it. And of course the concessions are just not comparable to the ones I have grown used to in Eau Claire.

But there is something just right about this theater. While prices in larger cities have risen to $8 for one ticket, you can still go to a movie here for about $5. This theater just feels like home. My first real job was at this theater. In junior high my friends and I felt so old because we would walk from the pizza place where our parents would drop us off at the theater to see a movie and then pick us up. It provided a sense of freedom.

A movie isn’t just a movie here. Like all things in a small town, everyone is there. It becomes a social event.

This Thanksgiving break my family, along with what felt like my whole town, saw “Christmas with the Kranks.” The premise of the movie is such: Parents, played by Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, decide to forgo Christmas when their daughter goes to Peru with the Peace Corps for a year. They instead use the money they would normally spend on Christmas to go on a cruise, just the two of them. Most of the movie is how they go about getting out of the “normal Christmas duties.” This really struck a chord with me – could we really just skip Christmas?

My initial reaction was there is no way. What about the presents? What about the family? What about the tree, the decorations, the food? What about Rudolph and Frosty? Christmas is too big and too important to miss.

Yet, as the movie progressed I realized maybe I was wrong, maybe we could skip Christmas. Christmas has become over-commercialized and every year ends up being more stressful than it should. I could go without hearing the same old Christmas songs for one year. I could definitely go without the craziness that seems to possess every shopper during the mere 30 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This view was reinforced when I went shopping with my family on Friday. The lines were crazy and people were crabby. Nothing says Merry Christmas like getting flipped off in the parking lot of Kohl’s.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that I would not want to forgo Christmas altogether; maybe there just needs to be a compromise. Christmas should be a time of family, food, decorations and presents, but I think Christmas also needs to become more simplified. Christmas needs to be a time of remembrance, thankfulness and renewed hope.

So, I have decided on a simplified plan for the holidays. I am going to enjoy a small Christmas party with my closest friends and take the time to be thankful for each of my friends. I am not going to get crabby while Christmas shopping.

Instead I am going to wait for finals week to shop and look at my shopping as a break from studying. I am not going to complain when someone wants to watch an old Christmas movie I have seen a hundred times, unless there is an Iowa basketball game I would rather watch. I am going to be thankful for my wonderful family and that they are able to buy me presents. And of course, I am going to go with my family to a movie.