The Meaning of Christmas

Last night, after all the toddlers and babies and grandparents and sisters and brothers-in-law went to bed, I sat as I normally do: by myself, in the dark, quietly soaking in the lights of the Christmas tree. I was tired - it's been a long year - but got to thinking about the Meaning of Christmas.

The Meaning of Christmas is:

• listening to kids at the mall
• paying $9.99 to see Santa (??)
• watching any and everything being turned into That "Perfect" Gift (a roadside sign on the way home: Give the only gift with taste - a Subway Gift card!....) (sheeesh)
• an enormous. exhausting emotional investment
• wondering why you and your sister can get along perfectly in your own houses, but the moment you're back at your parents, everything she does is annoying.
• seeing old friends and laughing until soup comes out your nose
• being hopeful for the new year
• Feeling guilty, fat and/or alone - atleast once, however briefly. Perhaps all three. Hopefully not on Christmas eve.
• Dealing with it, as a matter of course. Just because it's Christmas, doesn't mean life isn't happening.
• witnessing your family growing and changing
• taking crazy photobooth photos at the mall with your dad
• finally having an occasion to wear those tacky socks
• Andy Williams
• expecting to relax
• being surprisingly irritated - at bad drivers (do they get worse at Christmas, or is it just me?) or at everybody
• finding room to forgive yourself for real or imagined flaws
• giving that same grace to everyone else (including those wicked drivers..)
• letting it ride
• Bailey's
• seeing everyone around the beautifully decorated Christmas table for one more year, the same way we've done it for the past 31 years, and wondering what the next year will be like.