Sliding into home for the holidays...wondering where the year went...where all the years went actually. Time slides away faster every year. This Christmas, we decided not to do presents bought from stores but instead to celebrate the greatest gift of all...each others presence. It's amazing how ingrained Christmas shopping is and the rut worn by 57 years of staging Christmas. Harried people are everywhere...in a race with time to get a mountain of errands done before the holiday arrives. Stress, rushing around, fighting for parking places,spending money you don't have, racking up debt on the credit card...all side effects from the brainwashing of the great Christmas machine. Once I thought the machine was plugged in for recharging myself...the perfect gift for Stephen, the boys and always a basket of bubble bath and soaps for my Mom and sisters...new books, music, movies...the hot new toys and of course the always needed winter clothing and snow toys. If I bought the perfect gifts and baked a million cookies and managed to clean my house all before the darkening sky of Christmas eve...then the holiday would be perfect. I did all the running around, the baking, the cleaning, the filling of the stockings and the holiday meal preparation...not to mention the clean up. The day after Thanksgiving I would don my red cape and conjure up my extra powerful powers and like super-Santa...whiz through the month of December with hardly a moment to breathe. Then Christmas would come.
Of course it was never perfect tho in hind sight it was perfect in its imperfection...always some kind of disappointment follows such extreme anticipation and such high expectation. The holiday became the perfect set up for me to go all out in production and achievement...and then to come crashing into the finish line with a sense of failure, exhausted and frazzled...and dissappointed by my humanness. This is not what Christmas is all about.
This year we will gather for a holiday of relaxing together. Going skiing/snowboarding or sledding and watching old home videos and sharing a good meal together with a spirit of love and non-expectation. This year I will not out do myself outdoing myself. I will not spin myself into a tight tornado tearing a path through obstacles without regard to their need or nature. For once, I will let Christmas come and go on it's own and not feel one-handedly responsible for making the whole event "perfect". I will welcome the silent night...the soft light of candles, the deep story of the birth of a new year and allow that light into my heart to share with my friends and family. This year...I am the giving, the giver and the gift...and the folks I love are too. Merry Christmas and a divine farewell to 2009. May all feel the deep peace of the holy season of light.
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