The Holiday Spirit

We are winding down with our holiday work, as we have cookie exchanges, team breakfasts, gift swapping and the like.  It's a fun time of year, when people cast aside the layers of trouble and stress and we can all focus on what it means to be alive and to love...so why is everyone so stressed out?

I have talked to so many people already today, and the overall theme has been stress!  How will they finish shopping?  How can they accommodate all the extra guests who are coming?  How can they possibly fit it all in???!!!

Are we missing the point here?  Just a little bit?  I know my observations are nothing new, so why are we still here?  Loved ones, I promise you that I don't care what you get me for gifts.  I do appreciate the thought and the efforts, but I'm far more interested in spending time with you, enjoying the holiday spirit, following old traditions and creating new ones...  I don't care if the turkey is dry (not that we're having turkey, and certainly not that anyone in my family would ever make a cooking error!  LOL), and I don't mind if the houses I visit are not perfectly neat....nobody does.  :)

If I ever start to stress out over something that is meant to be a time of peace, love and goodwill, I will no longer celebrate the holidays because I will have clearly missed the point.  Our kids will not remember the Zhu Zhu pets they received or the tickle me elmo or the crazy eyed stuffed toy that was so popular years back.  They will remember the things we remember from our childhoods - the smell of apple cider in the crock pot, the way Mrs. Post used to corral us to drink her wassail bowl, the big green and red felt "Merry Christmas" sign Mom would hang each black Friday, the straw from the manger scene that I sometimes picked off the roof of the manger when playing with the first family, the songs we would sing that warmed our hearts and souls, the wax from the Christmas Eve candles that would drip through the cups onto our hands, the Christmas Eve gift I would open each year that would always turn out to be warm, cuddley pajamas, Mrs. Porbundawala's lemon bread and the feeling of profound love for my family and celebration as we remembered the story of the birth of Christ.

No amount of advertising or media pressure can take that away from me.  That is Christmas to me.  The rest of it, I chalk up to accessories to our memories, and they should be treated as just that.

I'm flying to Atlanta for Christmas this year.  I'm doing all of my shopping on 12/24.  I realize to some, that would cause stress, but I'm not worried about it.  Last year, all the gifts I ordered online didn't arrive in time, so I had to do all of my shopping all over again at the last minute when I arrived in Georgia, and it was fine.  I won't have the time to hunt down that perfect present for everyone, but who cares?  I haven't seen my sister and her family in a year - that's all that matters. 

So, gentle readers, if you have been plagued with a bit of the yuletide yucks, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and remember the holidays through you childhood eyes. 

Be well!