That Christmas feeling…..

There has been a very disturbing theme to the status updates for many of my friends and acquaintances on Facebook these last few days. Two weeks before Christmas, and negativity abounds!  One person asked all of her friends to respond to her post and in one word describe the last 24 hours of their life. NOT ONE person had anything positive to post.

What?

This is CHRISTMAS after all??

In this last year, I have tried very very hard to slow down. Appreciate. Be IN the moment, not just knocking something off my list  GETTING THROUGH the moment.  we have made more time for the four of us in the last year. It has been wonderful.

Saturday we spent the day, just us girls, in the Big Apple. (post to come!) Taking in the Christmas sights. To say it was crowded, was an understatement. But, there is something magical about the city at this time of year.

You know the city was full of tourists, but what struck me in Rockerfeller and other parts of the city, was how FEW people were looking up and taking in the sights and looking at the tree. Everyone just seemed to be trying to get to the next thing.  Moving on. Check that off the list. Keep moving.

There in lies the problem. I know. Last Christmas for me was just one more thing on my To Do list. I hated it. I hated that feeling.  And I made a pact with myself on New Year’s, that I would not spend this year doing the same thing. Just marking things off in order to say they were done.

Christmas time, right now, seems to be for most of my friends, just another list of things to do.

But, honestly, how many of them really truly matter??

Does getting 12 different types of cookies baked, make Christmas come?

Does stressing over standing in line for “The perfect’ gift make Christmas come? Do our kids really honestly need everything on their list?

Do the lights need to be up? Does the tree need to be up on such a such day and decorated by such and such minute? Does every teacher need a handmade gift? Do cards need to be sent to people you most likely have not had a conversation of any sort in the last 20 years other than swapping the obligatory christmas card.

Here is a hint – if you feel OBLLIGATED to do it, it most likely is not something memories are made of.

Then I hear people saying that they just can’t find the Christmas spirit! Because we are going about it all the wrong way.

Just like any peace in our hearts, it only comes when you slow down and get quiet enough to hear and feel it.

If you can do all the things on your list with a happy heart, little stress and a smile on your face , then there isn’t a problem. But if trying to get everything accomplished turns you into a scrooge, then what are you really accomplishing? Usually saying as we go, it is “all for the children”.  Is it truly “for the children”?  Society has given us such a skewed picture of what “the perfect Christmas” should look and be like, and we have given ourselves such high standards to meet, but along the way we are losing the joy. The miracle of the season.  We are so busy trying to MAKE everything perfect, that we are forgetting to stop and appreciate what is ALREADY perfect.

I think all of us are forgetting what we remember most about our Christmases as children. Do any of us remember every ornament on the tree being perfect? All the wrapping paper matching? 12 types of cookies on the table??

I know I don’t! What I remember the most about Christmas……

The red elf that was one of my grandmother’s decorations (and how excited was I to find a few years ago Elf on a Shelf who was almost exactly the same, to share with my kids- turns out hers had simply been the decoration on top of a box of chocolates at one time. She liked it and kept it. ) I remember one set of grandparents always being there Christmas morning to watch us open out presents (I know realize as an adult they most likely brought most of them but that is another story). I remember going to my other grandmother’s small apartment with at least 20 of our aunts/uncles/cousins – the smell of the turkey, how full the house was but also the laughter, the card playing and the warmth that was in the room.  I remember my grandfather’s train that he lovingly, not out of anything but the joy in his heart to do it, placed under the tree every year.  I remember only a select few of my gifts.  But I do remember painstakingly choosing a porcelain ornament, from a huge box that someone was selling door to door, that my dad was allowing me to chose for my  mom for her gift.

I asked the kids the other day what they look forward to the most about Christmas. For K, it is our yearly ritual of piling in the car in our pajamas, to drive around looking at the Christmas lights and stopping to have hot chocolate on the way home.  For C, it is choosing his ornament of the year (they chose one every year to represent their interests for the year), putting the tree up and “seeing the expressions on people’s faces when they open their gifts”.  Man, I love these two.

We need to SLOW DOWN!

Have a glass of wine. Sit in front of the lit tree in the dark and take stock of our blessings.

What matters is foot-y pajama’d babes fresh from a bath, asking for a story. Sweet little voices singing in Christmas pageants. Do you think anyone there will remember that you brought store bought cookies?  Encouraging them to chose a gift for a loved one or perhaps for a child they don’t even know, all the while explaining the love of Christmas. Spending time as a family one afternoon, making a mess with flour and sugar to make cut out cookies or decorate gingerbread.  To take time to drive slowly and look at the lights on the street.  Slow down. Take stock of really matters. Pare down.

Christmas is not about the stuff. The doing.

Steven Curtis Chapman has it right…

“'Cause Christmas is all in the heart, that's where the feeling starts
And like a fire inside, it touches every part
'Cause Christmas is all in the heart
And even if no white snow falls, that's all right because
The joy can still be found, wherever you are
'Cause Christmas is all, all in the heart”

My most favorite tradition – right now anyway – is the first night after the tree is up. Sir Fartsalot and I always always always, turn off all the lights after the kids go to bed, and just sit there. Looking, talking, remembering Christmases past, talking about just anything,

just BEING together in the light.

Basking also in the light that came to this earth on a very special Christmas eve years ago.

THAT is what matters.