Sunday, December 5, 2010

Make it special

So, every year now for the past five or so....since my kids have all grown up and lost that Christmas Magic in their eyes and voices....I have been struggling to make Christmas special again. For me mostly, cause it was to alive and magical with little kids in the house. Shopping was such a joy and a challenge as most of the time they were with me in the cart when I was buying their Christmas surprises...I got really really good at being sneaking....moms are like that ya know. But now it's mostly cash gifts, and they have to tell me what they want, cause I don't know them well enough to know what they really really want anymore...mainly cause they aren't under my roof and I'm not supervising most of their activities any longer. And the magic and joy are gone. It's all just work now...which I end up resenting....all the decorations and cooking and wrapping and cleaning....on top of all the work week and laundry and grocery shopping....Makes December the Work month instead of the Worship and Celebrate month and I hate that!! I loose the whole meaning behind Christmas. I HAVE to get that back!!!

So each year I come up with a theme. Or maybe just something different to focus on. One year I did an in depth study on the gifts the wise men brought to Baby Jesus and what those gifts may have been had they come in this time. It was a lot of fun, and spiritual in a lot of ways. I passed copies out to all my friends in our Bible group so see what they thought or might add. NOT unlike this blog....0 Comments. It really hurt, but doing the study did make it more special for me and I shared what I had learned about frankincense and myrrh with my kids when we opened our gifts and THEY liked it. Last year I decided to make a recipe for "Having a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" Instead of just wishing people that worn out phrase, I told them HOW to have one. It's all about joy, which can only come from the heart, and that means love, and love means giving. That's very condensed, but you get the idea, so I told them they would have to be givers thru out the year if they wanted it to be a "Happy New Year". I printed out a bunch of those papers and put them on all the little gifts I passed out to my friends and all my kids friends that are kinda my kids now. I actually did get one response...in a big way. Which was awesome and bittersweet at the same time. It was from the very well to do attorney my Gypsy was dating, and then broke up with the first part of December. She knew it wasn't going to work out, and just didn't want him spending tons of money on her and then it ending in January.....well, I still went to his place to see him, all heartbroken over loosing my little Gypsy girl, and I gave him some presents, mostly homemade, and the letter. He enjoyed it. He reposted it on his attorney blog for all his KU students, and then spend Christmas with close friends in Florida, who spent a day passing out envelopes with cash to people in need they randomly met on the streets there. Now if I had a lot of money to throw around....THAT'S something I would LOVE to do!!!!! What I found the most amusing about that Christmas theme, was the guy who took it to heart the most isn't even a born again Christian!!! How bout that for the love of Jesus touching lives!!!

SO, here we are again in December....and all that WORK is looming on me again and I have to come up with something to make the major reason for the season real to me once again. How do I do that? And then it came to me. It's the Little things that matter the most, and make the biggest difference. A little baby laid in a feed trough made the biggest difference in the world. A little town in the middle of nowhere became the birth place for the saviour of the world. A little gift of a few fish and a few pieces of bread fed the multitudes. My little birds at the feeder outside my window bring me the most contentment during winter. A shy little smile from the child in the shopping cart ahead of me at Walmart brings me more joy than anything in my cart. Its the little notes someone sends to me on FaceBook that make coming home after a hateful day at work the sweetest. Yeah, it really is the LITTLE THINGS in life that make it the best, and the most joyful and the most fulfilling. So that's going to be my theme for me this year. Stop trying to make it all BIG AND LOUD AND COLORFUL AND HUGE....and just concentrate on the little things. I may even go get a little fake Charlie Brown tree to decorate this year since our new antique (wow, that's an oxymoron isn't it) wagon wheel table with the glass top is taking up the space I use to put the big ass Christmas tree in.

I'm going to sit down this year, and celebrate the LITTLE THINGS. It's okay if you want to go buy huge gifts and do your holiday up big. You go on and getRdone!!! But it's not really about big gifts or big money or big displays. It's about little thoughtful things that make a big difference. It's about little steps that start a journey of a lifetime. It's about little words of encouragement that keep mailroom boys striving to meet their goals and becoming the president of the company. It's about little smiles and expressions of love that turn somebody's day around at the grocery store or the post office or the gas pump. For me this year, it's going to be a Little Christmas. At least that's my goal. Make this Christmas Special and Real and Magical for me....cause I need that. I need to find the Baby Jesus and the joy of the angels singing again this year.
And that's the dill pickle 'bout that!!