Sunday, December 25, 2011

I'll be Home for Christmas and in a Mental Hospital by New Years

Welcome to my messed up holiday season. Seriously. There has never been a Christmas that I can recall where everything has gone so terribly wrong.

It started out like every other year. Right after Halloween, I started buying gifts and making preparations. Then, suddenly, I was caught up in a tornado of orchestra concerts, choir concerts, classroom parties, my son's birthday party, etc., and found myself with two weeks until Christmas. Even then, I couldn't get my act together enough to completely decorate the house.

I knitted a lot of presents this year which was wonderful but very time consuming. I let the kids decorate the tree and my ornament box got completely messed up. There are very few things in life that I am completely obsessive about, and my ornament boxes are those very few things. Several ornaments went missing, and so did the rest of my holiday and my sanity.

In the middle of this winter of my discontent, I am mindful of the real reason for the season. I hold my loved ones close. I cherish the Christmas cards from my friends and family. I understand that it is not how many times we fall down in life, but how many times we get back up. Life goes on.

Perhaps the reason I go through periods like this is to make me appreciate the wonderful life I lead. And while I'll soon put away the Christmas gifts and decorations and regret that I didn't have my picture perfect holiday this year, I know that (God willing) I'll have another chance at it next year. Life goes on.

Until then, there will be so many things to look forward to: birthday celebrations, the other yearly holidays, a summer filled with baseball and softball, planting flowers, kids moving on to the next grade in school, football season, and all the ups and downs on that rollercoaster ride that is my life.

But in my basement, there will be boxes of ornaments just waiting . . .

Merry Christmas everyone.