Happy Holidays

This may sound awful, the kind of awful that you see in a Lifetime movie, but I love Christmas. The more I look back, the more I see the holidays (generally speaking) as the only time my father wasn't always raging at whatever. I mean sure there were the few Christmases money was tight (my parents sold their dining room suite to buy us gifts) but for the most part the Yuletide was a time of peace compared to the rest of the year. 

I don't know whether it's the memories from the ornaments who belong to so and so, or the warm glow of the lights, or placing the Holy Family (when I was growing up, the Baby Jesus) onto the hutch, but I just melt at Christmastime. In fact, I have to say that I went through all of this yesterday as the guy I'm dating watched, I'm sure just wondering how true it was when I said, "No, really Christmas isn't that big a deal."

Don't get me wrong, I come from a family where the gift giving was large and far too extravagant until my family's finiancial problems made us realize that it wasn't about what you got, but just the tradition of it. There was one year the the only gifts we opened were bought by us three, Ben, Erin and I. Don't get me wrong Christmas was a time to spoil us and I truly do still like that, but I like other aspects of the holiday as well.

I love that I feel so content during this time. I love the lights and the Christmas cards, and the parties and being able to appreciate people that I have a tendency to not thank well enough or often enough for their friendship during the year. Presents (at least with the fam, are the way I can do this). I still love getting stockings, and waiting for "Santa" to come. I love making treats and baking cookies and I even wish, silly though it may be, that my Dad would still write notes "From Santa" that we used to find magically in the morning. 

Despite what is normally hectic (even for me) and despite usually spending more than I should, I find that I like Christmas because I realize that "it" isn't always about me, but rather what I can give.