The eventful day is just around the corner. I probably won't have much time to post my holiday wishes after tonight with all the hustle and bustle in store.
The week has proven to be very busy and running very smoothly. I'm on schedule with everything except for moving some things around the house.
Ahhh, Christmas. I'm usually a bah humbug sort of person the weeks previous to Christmas with all the preparations. Each day closer lifts a bit of that bah and leaves me with a humbug. Progress eases the stress and lifts the weight of all that needs to be done and leaves me feeling peaceful and content.
I mope around cursing this holiday every year because the stores are busy, money if flying out of our pockets like water from a faucet, baking needs to be done, presents need to be made or wrapped, menus need to be prepared. But deep inside my heart, Christmas is one of my most favorite holidays.
The moment all that work is done and I can enjoy the hours and hours of labor, being with my husband and our kids, is the moment all that stress turns into content and an outpouring of love and appreciation.
Our kids...god are we blessed with some great kids. And our grandson...oh my. And I'm blessed to have a man who dotes on us and loves us to no end...that to me is gift enough on this much anticipated holiday.
While I don't much care for the commercialization of Christmas these days, I do love the act of contributing to it. Guilty! I spend hours wrapping gifts for our kids and trying to find ways to make them work for it...this year is no exception. They are going to be very displeased with me I think...oops.
But many times every year, I stop what I'm doing and remind myself what the real meaning of this day is...gifts are nice, giving and receiving are fun but right around this time I start to think of my mom.
She loved going to midnight mass and still does. She loves the music, the service, all of it. I think about how she would drag us kids out of bed and make us go with her...how I would sit there and shiver struggling to stay awake. I'm sure I fell asleep plenty but she was always right...the music was like nothing we'd ever hear on a regular day at church.....it was amazing.
Christmas day was generally pretty chaotic for her with 8 kids, significant others, grandkids, and great-grandkids packing into that small house. Cooking for well over 30 people, table set, working around the cramped quarters...she spent weeks before Christmas baking and freezing cookies and fruitcakes, shopping, wrapping gifts....my mom is one hell of a woman!
Through it all though she would stop to remind us kids about the birth of Jesus and tell us that Christmas is not about the gifts. That we should always remember the true meaning of this day. And she still does.
While I'm not religious, that doesn't stop me from remembering that. Usually about this same time every year too. It helps me keep things in perspective, to take a breath and a step back from the overwhelming aspect of this day that I curse....today was the day I remembered as I was washing up dishes from the many pie crusts.
Today is the day I stopped the cursing and started to enjoy all I was doing. The 'bah' is long since gone and that 'bug' has left the roost as well....The real meaning of this day, all the gifts wrapped and others ready to be sent off with P in the morning...all of it came together at that moment and left me with a gently 'hum' filling my heart.
Friends, family, memories of my father....sadness for those lost and those military folks who's significant others won't be home .... the worry about whether people will like our gifts is gone, the worry about seating and space in our home is gone. In the end it turns out, in my world anyway, bah humbug isn't all bad...only one and a half of those words should be discarded. It's that positive in a negative thing with me.
On that note, I want to wish you all have a very Merry Christmas, have many laughs and lotsa love as you spend the day with those who mean the most to you....and may all those troops and their families find some way to enjoy this day. Hugs and kisses to my dad.
Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!!!!!
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