It's the most terrible time of the year! lalala!

  Christmas felt strange this year. Perhaps because it was on Sunday, perhaps because so many people were missing, perhaps because I was maybe just a little hormonal, but most likely because I really haven't figured out for myself why we do all of this; why go through all this effort and extreme stress?
  I've been going over and over in my mind all month about what Christmas should be. Through the last decade (yeah, it's weird to say), I've become less and less easily captured by the magic of the season. Sad, but it is what it is.   I'm so totally over the commercialism. I really don't want more stuff. My kids really don't need more toys. I get really annoyed at all the expectation. At the same time, I really appreciate a person who takes the time to have a beautiful tree and a festive home. Kathy does a beautiful job at this. She switches out her pictures, her throw pillows and her centerpieces. It's really nice to go into her beautiful house and I feel so encouraged to do the same. Then in the next thought sequence -but why? More to buy, more to store, more to take down in 25 days. And so the conflict goes.

  So I guess the question goes back to why I would want to do all of this. For the kids? Well I've been trying fun stuff for the past several years. Traditions, things the children would like, but this becomes another conflict because Ben isn't really into holiday traditions (for whatever reason) and when he is not doing them wholeheartedly it is felt by all and it's just not a family event, so not really much fun. And really, are the traditions something I should be tightly holding on to for my meaning?
  It is so irritating to do effort without meaning!  - 'Jesus is the reason for the season' - Hmmm... really? show me... when? how? oh, you go to a little service on Christmas eve? put up a little nativity? wow.
  I know there is something more. More than Santa obviously, more than candlelight services. I know God is talking to me, but I just could not hear Him over the chaos of my frantic December. I feel like there is something deep, ready to be revealed. Not just about Christmas, but about my life, the rhythms of our days. waiting. I am waiting for God to show me but I ask, is He waiting for me, for my maturity? yikes.

  Here are two happy and content boys, playing around their last three unopened gifts, not even asking to unwrap them. Something is a little off here. I'm not upset and I'm not really even complaining, just supposing... how nice would it have been if that morning we all had come down, and after opening just one gift, instead of tearing our attention away from it to open another we talked about Jesus; maybe read Luke over cinnamon rolls and coffee.
  Today I am overwhelmed by the inadvertent excess. Asking myself where I went wrong. Every year I vow it will be different. It never is. I just sing my song... lalala!