i love Christmas

December 26, 2008 at 6:13 am (Uncategorized)

I love Christmas. I love my family and the tree and the stockings and the food and going to Christmas Eve service. I love waking up in brand new pajamas and eating cheesecake for breakfast. I love Christmas music. I love reading the nativity story from the Bible and singing happy birthday to Jesus. I love presents, yes, but I could do without the presents and love Christmas just as much. I start looking forward to this time ’round about September every year. I love baking and cooking all our traditional foods that my mom and sisters have made in years past, taught me to make, and I now make myself. My mom idly looks on as I bustle about the kitchen – she’s quite happy to let someone else do the work. I love sausage rolls. I love watching other people enjoy my cooking.

This year was a bit different of a Christmas for me – my mom and dad are going through a divorce and my mom has moved to a beautiful house about 50 minutes from my school. I went and spent a week with my daddy after school was out, and we had a fantastic pre-Christmas… he took me out to fancy dinner and then to see the Nutcracker in San Francisco, with dessert after – the whole works. He took the entire week off of work (unheard of for my father) to spend time with just me. It was the best gift he could have given me. I’ve never had so much fun with my dad.

Now I’m in FL with my mom and we’ve been having a Christmas amidst half-unpacked boxes and a fake Christmas tree. I miss the real firs and all the “stuff” – but at the same time, it really hit me that it doesn’t matter. I have my mom here, and we’re both happy. Like really happy. The stuff is just stuff. We didn’t even cook Christmas dinner. (I still made sausage rolls though.) We spent the afternoon with two families from our church and their combined five children, and I haven’t had that much fun playing on a swing set in what feels like forever. Then my mom and I saw a silly movie and went home and warmed up ham and potatoes for just the two of us. We spent Christmas night curled up together on the couch watching the Best of Mythbusters. We were truly content and had an amazing Christmas.

My family is scattered. My dad is in California. My two sisters live in Colorado, and one just got engaged. I’m not going to get to help with any of the wedding stuff I’m sure, simply because of the distance. My only living grandparents live in Oregon, and my extended family is as far away as England and Australia. It’s never going to be “all together for Christmas” again in all likelihood. But that doesn’t matter either. We love each other and we’re going to make it work. Because of cell phones and texting and pictures and such. I got a picture of my sister’s engagement ring on my cell phone as soon as she got it. My dad texts me and forgets to calculate the time difference. My mom and I will be seeing more of each other now that she’s only an hour away from me. We don’t need the stuff. I am so lucky that my family is alive and healthy, and everyone in it loves me and they all want the best for me.

I realize I’ve meandered around my point, so here it is, corny as it might sound: Whoever you have in your life, that is what this is about. Loving Jesus, loving your family, loving your friends, loving people when it’s inconvenient to do so, letting them know that you care. December will come and go, but i wish we could all keep a little corner of the Christmastime feeling somewhere deep down to keep the joy alive throughout the year.

love&joy

~Kay~