On another Christmas, without kids: The energy drops from the room

Written a bit before about my own issues with male infertility — it’s somewhat rare to see guys post about that, so I feel good about my levels of transparency — and I guess this past Christmas would have been my 41st without having a kid. I haven’t seen my family at Christmas for seemingly ever, but I think the total is three years, seeing as how my parents are in NYC and this was our second COVID Christmas and it’s hard to travel anyway + all the Omicron variant cancellations and whatever. On my wife’s side, no one else has young kids. I’ve been to a couple of Christmas celebrations over the years where tons of young toddlers were crawling around. In the last, say, 5–10 years I think I’ve developed a general idea that family is awesome, and time/memories with family is awesome, but when you attend a Christmas with a bunch of kids under six years old vs. with no kids under six years old, the energy in the room is different. Christmas is held together by the experiences of the very young at getting presents, understanding the traditions, being seen by many, etc. It’s not held together by stories of yesteryear among a group of adults; now, the adults are making memories, and that’s nothing to scoff at, but the energy of Christmas comes from young children.

Would you disagree with that?