The Holidays...Part 1- Great Expectations

  Every year, every single year, I have big plans for Christmas present shopping. Ask me October first and not only do I have a "plan" but I'll have one gift already bought. Feel free to call me the Martha Stewart of holiday gift giving! Not only does the plan detail gifts but decorating, food and must-do events. I am delusional and everyone knows it but my true friends let me enjoy my bubble while it lasts.

  It is now the 10th of December and my plan has failed miserably. Wait that word doesn't even come close to the level of failure this year. Why you may ask? Because there is still shopping to do. And those presents must go in the mail to the other side of the country! I'm not holding my breath that they will arrive by the big day. My bubble is officially popped!

  Yesterday the tree finally went up. Not decorated. But in the stand with the lights working. Progress. Today I need to fix the branches and haul the boxes up the stairs. It does look pretty without any decorations at night....I know what you are thinking and you are right, during the day it needs something. Very few other Christmassy things will be going out though. There just isn't enough time.

  I have spent the last thirty years trying to make John excited about the holidays and the shopping and decorating. He has never, ever, shown any interest in either. Yes, he will climb the ladder for the outdoor lights. Set up the timer for said lights and haul the heavy tree up the basement stairs. But once that is done he is just as happy to sit in the chair and watch me, and now the kids, do the rest. And now the kids are losing interest. I'm doomed.

  The holiday season will go on. Whether my house is decorated or not. Tree or no tree. Cards or no cards. Presents will not matter. The days will go on till we all wake up on December 25th with the same excitement we had as children. After all, it's about being together....right?

  

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

  Ang