Christmas should be a week. For all the work we put in – the shopping, the baking, the mailing, the getting in the spirit - we should get more time to soak in it. It always feels like wait for it, stress, wait for it, stress, wait for it, then BAM – Merry! – done. I try so hard to remind myself to relax and enjoy the day, but at some point, I usually get so worked up that I’m not present enough in the day that I feel like I’m clutching the back of Santa’s sleigh wailing, “No, don’t LEAVE me!”
Inevitably, you see a Christmas tree tossed out the next morning, or worse, the same evening. Sigh.
I probably have this completely wrong, but I remember way back in my youth when I took French in high school, that Christmas over there really begins with Christmas Day and carries on until Candelmas in February. I could handle some of that.
That said, I’m thankful for the radio station that I cursed the week before Thanksgiving for playing holiday music that continued through the weekend so I could keep on hollying along.
As for this year’s festivities, they were both grand and unusual. Can’t say as I’ve ever had a real white Christmas before (powdered sugar explosions notwithstanding), so that was new. Everything worked out logistically and schedule-wise so that we (our foursome family unit) could go to church together on Christmas Eve, celebrate at my grandma’s house that evening, enjoy Santa’s bounty Christmas morning, lounge about at my folks’ the rest of the day, and spend Boxing Day with the hub’s side of the family. Sadly, we didn’t end up with the requisite white elephant bottle of Crown Royal, but you have to leave something for next year.
It’s always a little bittersweet to put away the presents (never mind the decorations, but that’s for another day; I’m not ready for that yet), but it’s even more so as an adult and a parent. (Yes, I know exactly what my mother is thinking at this very moment: what do I mean put presents away since I would leave mine under the tree until the tree itself was gone and then for a few weeks more until she got so irritated she flung them on my bed and demanded that I put them up, it’s almost February for heaven’s sake.) Now, when the car is unloaded and all the boxes are strewn in front of the fireplace (our traditional gift piling station), I’m grateful for the generosity of our loved ones, but it’s also hard to wrap my head around that generosity when I don’t always feel so deserving of it. And let’s face it, who isn’t a little bit stymied at the thought of finding a spot for everything? See – bittersweet. But I’ll try to focus on the sweet. And to fill a really big bag with stuff for Goodwill to make room.
So thank you to one and all for helping to make this a very merry season indeed. I assure you that even a smile in my direction was felt with appreciation. I’m going to carry on this Christmas business for as long as I can (no, not until February, Mom), and hopefully the spirit on through the year until it’s time to do it all over again.
Maybe with a little less wrapping paper next time, so I don’t feel so eco-guilty.
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