I have a confession. I don't feel bad sharing this with you, as it seems I am not alone. Here goes: I am nearly done with my Christmas shopping. It's an odd feeling, as it's very uncharacteristic of me. It's even stranger given my pathetic attitude toward the whole thing this year. (The whole thing being Christmas in general.)
I'm not really sure how it happened, but I suspect online shopping is to be credited with putting me ahead of the curve. My last package came yesterday and that's when it hit me: I'm done, actually done. And outside of a gift for my youngest nephew and perhaps a last-minute online gift certificate order, I am all set.
Of course there is wrapping to do. But the thing with wrapping is that I seem to think it can't be done until the tree is up. It's part of the natural progression of all things holiday. The tree sets into motion all sorts of events: wrapping of gifts, watching of Christmas movies, welcoming of guests, crying in the bathroom, threatening to disown my family, and eventually collapsing with my beloved swearing we'll never do it again.
I'm going to try to break the chain this year. . . we managed to do so in 2006, and I am hopeful we can regain some of the same strength we found then (without the use of alcohol and denial) and turn this whole thing around.
On Saturday we'll head out in search of a Christmas tree. I'll spend the better part of the day wrapping strand after strand of lights around it, slipping a bow on top and then sprinkling ornaments all around. The next day I'll wake up with cat hair stuck to my sap covered hands, sore from all of the reaching and crawling around, and I'll come downstairs to see my sweet little tree and somehow, for just a little bit, I will believe in miracles (like families can be kind to one another) and hope (that things to get better) and faith (that this too shall pass) and love (each other, those that aren't often loveable and ourselves while we're at it.) And it will occur to me that it's time to start wrapping all of those gifts the USPS has been dropping on our doorstep for the past few weeks.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Breaking the chain
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3 comments:
You lost me at: "Without the use of alcohol and denial" ;)
I wish I could say I had all mine done, but I'm nowhere near it. Eliza came over today, and we got the tree put up. Well, almost...we haven't found the garland or the angel yet, but it's in one of those boxes we haven't got out yet I'm sure...I hope.
I think i realized the truth in why we're done with the shopping. It's not because we're so excited to be out there celebrating the festivities, it's because we're anxious to get it all over with and just be done already. At least that's the reason I came up with while waiting at UPS this afternoon. There was this sense of "OMG, this feels so good to be practically DONE". Now we can just sit back, drink our peppermint mochas and laugh at the people who are scurrying around 5 days before Christmas.
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