Christmas Spirit

I have the holiday spirit finally!

Every year the as the holidays race towards me, I get a sense of fear and foreboding. A preemptive feeling of being overwhelmed. Do I have all my presents purchased (and can I afford them?), have I finished my Christmas cards? Have I met all of my obligations for events, responsibilities and activities? To compound the list of 'have to's', I have two birthdays, Hannah's and Ron's (the 20th and 23rd of December respectively). The government also chooses December as the date that property taxes are due. Can you imagine the gall?

This year I took a deep breath. Ron let me order the cards which diminished the 'ordeal' of perfection, we had a small and low key birthday party for Hannah and we chose gifts for ourselves that reflected our desire to 'downsize' in preparation for our move to Canada.

More importantly, we distilled the joy of the holidays into activities that provided us with pleasure without going overboard. We decorated cookies (pre-made dough, hand made florescent green frosting, and LOTS of candy sprinkles), but we didn't deliver them to the neighbors, we just made them for us.

We determined that none of us eat the stuffing, so, really...why stuff?

Our Nutcracker experience was a local ballet troupe in a high school gym, but the story was no less mesmerizing and the music, well...it was the Nutcracker and really, what more do you need?

Really, what is this season? Are we celebrating Jesus's Birthday? Is this the pagan festival celebrating the winter solstice? Did the candles burn in the temple for 8 crazy days and nights? Does each culture have a holiday to celebrate in December by happenstance, or...

Are the holidays a time to bid goodbye to the year before, reflect on the gifts that are friends and family, to bring brightness into dreary winter days and to take a break before beginning the race all over again.

If that is the case, I believe I have the holiday spirit!