Well, despite all the excitement and commotion, and suggesting that everyone say Merry Christmas, and even saying it a few times myself.... I just cannot get into the mood, at all, this year. This is our 1st year we have not been in our home, in Buford, where we spent many Christmases..... decorated, inside and out, sometimes had more than one tree, and SNOWMEN filled the house, everywhere... I wrote Christmas cards, and delighted at all the ones we got, usually taping them to the door frame in the foyer into the great room, getting excited when pictures were included so we could see the kids from our friends, and loved ones, and how they had grown. There were years that I even baked cookies and made candy, and hot cocoa mix for gifts. I ran around shopping for the perfect thing for everyone (although there really is no such thing) making sure they were all wrapped to a tee, and the wrapping bags, which I later used mostly, had just the right bit of tissue poking out the top, here and there, so it would look "perfect". In the early years when the girls were young, I did the "room mother" thing, and made cute little bells, out of teeny tiny clay pots turned upside down, hand lettering each little precious kids names on them, in gold or silver... oh if they were a little bit off, well, I just had to make another one and start again. I also helped make goodies for those school parties, and showed up to help the other room mothers serve the kids and their teachers, when the girls were little. As they grew older, I ran all over the place making sure I had enough, of "just the right thing" to go into their stockings for each of them, as that seemed to be one of the gifts they enjoyed the best! I threatened not to keep doing it, but they balked, so I kept on, and on... and that makes me happy. We always had dinner at our house, either in Duluth, or Buford, so I cooked a big dinner, everyone brought something, and we all ate together, sometimes including other family and friends to join us. One of my favorite things to do, almost everyday, was just sit and look at our Christmas tree...with the lights, twinkling, the collection of ornaments, that were hung every year. We even had 3 of the 4 gold plastic angels that hung on our very first little tree at Myrtle Beach. The years brought on bigger trees, and more ornaments... filled with memories, and I would go around looking and remembering at each one of them, making sure they were in just the right spot, adjusting where needed.
We have a tiny little tree here, with one little string of 20 lights, a few tiny sand dollars, and some bows tied on the limbs. It is right cute, but we have not gotten it out. No wreaths are hung.... no cards have either been sent or received. (E-mail, or fb seems to be the preferred choice of communication these days, so sadly less people send them anymore.)
Anyway, that is how my season this Christmas has been going... kind of in a fog, thinking back to the Christmases past, and longing for those days, in a way again. But I know we cannot go back, so we will continue going forward.... Thank goodness for the memories and all the pictures that we took... Maybe I will look for the ones of our latest Christmases, in our home, and maybe that will help get me in the mood. And..... maybe I can get Mr. T. to pull that little tiny tree outta the closet, and set it on the table and plug it in too! Just a few little lights, but they might help my spirit glow......
Realizing that none of those things that I aforementioned makes Christmas, or what it is truly all about, as I know that Christmas really is, or should be, a time of celebrating the Birth of our Christ.
I need to get real quiet and think about that, and maybe that will help me get the REAL spirit of Christmas back in my heart.....
