HoliDAZED

At church the other day, someone remarked it's the season of crazy; I agreed, replying, "Crazy with a capital C!"  The next several days are going to be maniacal for me (okay, more than usual, we'll put it that way), so I'm taking a few minutes to sit down and (attempt to) gather my thoughts!  My friends are taking bets on how long I can continue at this speed before I crash and burn.  They aren't being mean,  they just know me too well.  I think the current bet is midnight tonight....

I've been having some difficulty finding my Christmas spirit this year.  It's been a rough year and I just can't seem to shake what 'ails' me right now.  Grief and depression can be especially overwhelming for so many of us during this season.  Normally, this is truly my favorite time of the year.  I enjoy decorating my house, baking all kinds of seasonal goodies and I can't get enough of all the Christmas songs.  I get excited about shopping for my kids, wondering about their reactions on Christmas morning.  I love Santa to the point that if I didn't have to be Santa to my own kids, I'd probably still believe in him! I love what this season means to us as Believers.  As a mom, I get particularly weepy, thinking about what Mary went through.  Unfortunately, it's been difficult for me to focus on any of that this year.  We decorated, but I almost really couldn't see the point.  I'm baking, but it's wearing me thin.  And I swear if I hear one more Christmas song, I'll scream.  I'm taking care of everything on my to-do list, but there's no joy in any of it.  It's just more stuff I have to do, added to everything I already have to get done.

This is where my two best friends come in.  They got me thinking about Christmases past.  And yes, they had me laughing so hard my tears were from laughter instead of sadness.  We started talking about some of the trees we've had; like the fake Charlie Brown Christmas tree we had our first year of marriage, or the one with the root ball that died right in our living room, and the year we had early snow and ice, but I was determined we were going up the mountain to cut down our own tree anyway.  Then there was the year Shawn sort of stole our Christmas tree from the Boy Scout lot (in his defense, it was in the dead pile....).  After those adventures, we've switched to a nice, easy-to-assemble, pre-lit, fake tree!  Last year we had one kitten and another cat who still thought he was a kitten (or was finally learning he's a cat), so I every time I walked past the (fake) tree, there was one little orange face and one little black and white face peering out at me at eye level.  We've given up on having angels and stars on the top of our tree because something always goes wrong with them, but my favorite was the drunken angel we had one year.  Not only was she lit (haha), but she wouldn't stay straight on the tree.  I keep forgetting to buy an extension cord, so for the second year in a row, the lights in the greenery on the mantel are plugged into the cable box (welcome to Christmas in the van down by the river!).  We've misplaced Baby Jesus from one of the nativity scenes so many times I've considered superglueing him into his cradle; Avery and the cats are usually the culprits, of course.  I'm always horrified when I realize the toy the cats have been playing Hallway Hockey with is, in fact, Baby Jesus.  Of course, then we have all the cooking and baking adventures; last year I cooked part of our Christmas dinner with sterno because our microwave and one of the burners on my stove died on Christmas Eve.  My mother in law has been gone for 13 years, so last year, I got it in my head that I was going to cook some of the things she used to do for my husband.  I bought fresh sweet potatoes (turning my nose up at the canned ones), and went through recipe after recipe for creamed corn (again, turning my nose up at the canned stuff....).  Christmas Day came and I set to work; my husband didn't have the heart to tell me until the next day that his mom always bought the canned stuff.  Gotta love it.

I'm the type who strives to make the holidays perfect.  I want my house to look like Martha Stewart's, but it usually just ends up looking like Christmas threw up.  I want the meals to be award winning, but I end up exhausted.  I want the presents to be wrapped beautifully, but I've never been able to tie a decent bow.  I aim for the perfect Christmas year after year (I've learned there is no such thing, but I still aim for it anyway because I'm just hard-headed....), but it usually ends up looking like a Griswold Family Christmas.  And sometimes, we behave more like Cousin Eddie's family than we do Clark Griswold's....  I am slowly coming to realize that it's not the food or the decorations or the gifts that makes Christmas perfect; it's the people you spend it with who do, and the memories you make with those people (yes, even the outrageous ones).