The Christmas-Crazy Kid

The day after Halloween, it started: the Halloween candy replaced with red, green and silver wrapped Hershey kisses and red and green M & Ms.  Not long after that an occasional carol. By the second week of November the cable channels were playing Christmas movies. 

For much of my life, I was the Christmas-Crazy kid.  I delighted in finding just the perfect gift for each special person in my life, and I could hardly wait to make Christmas cookies.  Planning and cooking for a large holiday open house was a highlight of the season, and I had reduced decorating to a fine art.  A former dance partner started playing carols non-stop at Thanksgiving, and we knew every word to every song and belted them out at the tops of our lungs as we drove down the highway.

The whole season was special, but the most special was Christmas Eve.  I always planned a special dinner, and I could hardly wait to see loved ones open the special gifts I'd carefully shopped for.  I am certain that I was more excited to see the joy in their eyes than any anticipation I had about my own gifts.  Finally, the evening would be topped off with midnight church service and carol singing.  A little snow was always nice, but truthfully, since I spent half of my adult life in Oregon, rain was more likely.

That Christmas-Crazy Kid was truly like a kid...even though I'd 40. There was something triggere inside me that was like being 8 or 9 again...year after year after year.  My parents did a really good job at being Santa, so much so that I was the only kid in my fourth grade class who still believed.  The moment that even a hint of the season approached, I was transported back in time.

I am not sure how or why I lost that kid, and I am not sure that I fully acknowledged that until I hrrmphed at the sight of those red, green and silver Hershey kisses on November 1.  Some would say that it is the normal aging process, but I don't believe that.  I think the magic of Christmas lies in delighting those around us, whether with specially sought gifts, lovingly prepared foods, or Christmas decorations unwrapped year after year, each with a memory attached.

Maybe it is the pace of life.  Taking time to really know people well enough to actually be able to find the perfect gift appears to be a figment of the past, and often an obligatory gift card fulfilling a duty substitutes for the loving care that was once an important part of Christmas shopping.  I have to say that until I started writing this post that I'd flirted with not even getting a tree this year, and that seems like waving the flag of surrender to my inner humbug. And I won't give in to this creeping...creeping...what?

Thirty years ago there was a movie called "The Neverending Story--Part I." In the fantasy, a young boy named Bastion is charged with stopping "the great Nothing," a force taking over the world. Wikipedia describes The Nothing as "human apathy, cynicism, and the denial of childish dreams."  The Nothing occurs when we lose our capacity to feel.  Imagination through the power of wishing is the only thing that can overcome The Nothing.

Somewhere, somehow, I think the Nothing stole the Christmas-Crazy Kid from me.  I need Bastian's help...fast...I am in danger of losing the Kid in me. My childish dreams kept the spirit of Christmas alive inside of me. After all, isn't that a big part of what Christmas is all about: finding the kid inside each of us.

I have some serious work to do over the next week when the traditional Christmas season starts at Thanksgiving.  The serious work is to find my childish dreams and imagination.  I wish, I wish, I wish...Bastion, I need your help...!

Only Five Shopping Days Left

"Only Five Shopping Days Left" at this time of year is usually associated with shopping days before Christmas to buy gifts. Not so this reminder. These five shopping days are the last five days of the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13.)

Most people, including those who do not religiously observe Christmas, would agree that the holiday season is a time of connection--with friends and family, The Grocery Store Game is an effort and discipline to connect with those we don't know and usually look through or by, like the grocery store clerk (thus the game's name.) I challenged my readers (and myself) to create connection with three people each day in the month of December. We are now down to the last five days.

I've had surprising connections with people in my work building, neighbors, and even a quite remarkable homeless man. I even hosted someone for Christmas dinner that I didn't know well. (My philosophy is the more the merrier.) And I still have five days remaining!

What opportunities remain: perhaps even a connection with the person you were fighting with over that black cashmere sweater at the after-Christmas sale.

If you haven't made a "stretch connection"--to actually have a conversation with someone from a very different walk of life, there are still five days left.

Some believe that at Christmastime there is a special window that opens to the Universe, that we humans can create particularly powerful connections. Just because the big day is over doesn't mean that opportunity is gone: there are still five shopping days left.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Honoring Christmas

Yesterday I heard a Charles Dickens quote that was new to me: "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."  The quote really moved me and started me thinking about what it means to honor Christmas.  As I reflected over my writings in this blog over the last couple of weeks, I have written about Christmas as being light in the darkness, hope, love, acceptance,  memories, friends, and being present. 

When I read the quote, I think what my brain was doing was plugging all those qualities into Dickens' words, and they are powerful indeed.  Think about it: "I will honor being light in the darkness, hope, love, acceptance, memories, friends, and being present in my heart, and try to keep them all year."  That is quite an assignment.  I am sure that I will slip many times, but I will hold the intention to be those things in my heart and to try to keep them all year.  Even if I slip, holding that intention is certain to have a powerful impact on my life and those of people I touch.

My best wishes to all of you for "honoring being light in the darkness, hope, love, acceptance, memories, friends, and being present in my heart, and try to keep them all year."  Now that would truly bring the magic of Christmas.

Rescuing Hope and Love

I've watched several Christmas movies this weekend in multi-task mode.  Watch movie and clean. Watch movie and bake. Watch movie and wrap presents. 

All Christmas movies seem to be the same movie: someone who is embittered catches the magic of Christmas and rekindles hope and love.  Some would say it is sappy.  It maybe, but isn't rescuing hope and love what Christmas is about?  Aren't hope and love the light in the darkness?  Whatever our faith tradition, the darkest time of the year seems an appropriate time to look in our hearts, and wherever hope has been tarnished, rescue hope and love.

Time-Traveling...Again

I put up a Christmas tree last weekend for the first time in several years.  It wasn't easy: the tree is way bigger than I am.  But, with the help of the man at the Christmas tree lot who tied it on top of the car, the doorman at my apartment who brought it up to my apartment, and a friend who held it while I screwed the base into the tree, I managed.  After said friend left, I put the lights on the tree, and then, I carefully placed my special ornaments, acquired one or two a year over 30 years onto the tree. 

Finally, I sat down with an eggnog, allowed myself to be enveloped by the scent of fresh pine, and just looked at the tree.  For me, my Christmas tree is a time-travel machine.  I am six again.  That doesn't mean I am sentimental about old times, because I hardly think about them. When I say my Christmas tree is a time-travel machine, I mean that I am six again, in awe of the lights.  It is like I am three feet high again, just looking in amazement at the wonder of its beauty. And, totally present.  Not a thought in my head, but joy in every cell of my body. 

I've noticed that each time I turn the lights on, it happens all over again.  Even when I plug the lights in at 5:20 in the morning as I race around getting ready for work, the tree stops me dead in my tracks.  I am six again, mesmerized by the lights.  When I was a youngster, I used to like to sleep on the sofa when the Christmas tree was up so that I could wake up in the middle of the night and feel its beauty.  Ah...I might just do that again.

What is most wonderful is the ability to totally still my mind into the present moment...now that is Christmas magic!