It's the day after, and I woke up realizing that I didn't get to watch as much of the "A Christmas Story" marathon as I wanted, or sit back and watch the movies I hoped to see, or the one thing I missed the most this year was being with my family.
In the movies, there is always scenes of how families come together on the Holiday and do something together. In the sentimental movies, everyone goes to Church and sits around at some point and shares memories. In the comedies, everyone is bickering because of some quirk or habit of someone else, which probably makes it a comedy because we're forced to face our own lives - realizing that there is or was that aunt or grandpa with the obnoxious habit or ideas (like Ralphie in A Christmas Story getting that pink bunny costume for Christmas)
Maybe all of this has to do with my granddaughter coming to visit me for a couple of days, or that in all I had to do on Christmas Eve, and then because Christmas fell on a Sunday again, I had a day of preaching, and then instead of doing what many others might have been doing on Christmas Day, I was visiting people in the hospital and detouring to a colleague's church so that I could have some sort of a Christmas meal between all of the other obligations I had. In all of that, my call home to my parents and siblings wasn't while I was sitting in my chair relaxing this year, as in years past - it was over a Bluetooth speakerphone through my cell phone as I was driving between cities. I remember thinking at one point that the next step will be having a driver and a secretary as I'm trying to get everything done... if I ever get to that point, it will surely be time to reassess and stop!
Now I'm not saying that it is someone else's fault by any means. I made the choices, past and present, in my life to be what and who I am, and I also made the decision to stay up late on Christmas Eve so that I could sit in a pew, listen to a Message, take Communion as a Parishioner, and sing worship as everyone does, so it was my doing to have limited sleep and such. I'm just saying that I miss some things.
- I do miss the comment or two about Christmas pictures. Any picture that my maternal grandmother took always seemed to me "off centered". As much as we might miss our loved ones, that is one quirk that I still chuckle about... look at any picture of my siblings and me as kids, and if it looks like the camera had to be turned about half an inch in the side, then we knew that Grandma Lyon took it.
- I miss picking at the cookies while walking through my mom's kitchen. As I said in one blog, there are cookies, and then there are mom's cookies.
- I miss the massive destruction of wrapping. After all of these years, I wonder why 'Santa' wasted so much time gift wrapping, knowing how us kids could totally destroy the paper. But as weird as this may seem, I also miss the cleaning up of all of that paper. I think it has to do with the realization of all that we received. And with four kids, there was a lot of paper. I wonder why 'Santa' never just threw a sheet over each kid's set of gifts and tag each one. Maybe it's because 'Santa' enjoyed it as well.
- As I was traveling from city to city to city on Christmas, I realized how much I missed the traveling from home to one grandparents' home and then to the other grandparents' home, and then back to the first, and then going home. I don't think I put on the miles yesterday as Dad would have back then, but the thought was there. Now I think I know why Dad could just "spin his finger in the air" and us kids knew that it meant to gather up our things because it was time to go.
- This year my niece had to wake up her parents (my sister and brother-in-law), not because it was Christmas, but because she wasn't feeling well. If you've kept up with the blogs, you know how we, as kids, would sneak around and wait for our parents to wake up so we could open the gifts. After all these years, my niece figured out the real way - get sick. (just kidding - because she was sick she had to skip out on going to my parents' place for Christmas, which she didn't like, and I hope that she's feeling better and enjoying her Christmas break). But again, I miss that "feeling" when waking up and wondering how long until we could "attack" the gifts.
- I miss the opportunity to spend my spare time duing Christmas and afterwards playing with Christmas gifts. Now that's not to say that I can't do that now, and there is some anticipation as I await a gift my brother is sending me, but maybe it is a sign of the times, or just that my schedule made things different this year, or just the "good ole' memories" sneaking into my mind. But that's ok this year - I'm relaxing, getting ready for my granddaughter to show up.
- I miss hanging off my roof, or out a bedroom window, or walking around a tree with a rake, while hanging Christmas lights. Some of the things we did to get the lights up when we were kids just amaze me so much now (but it worked!). But through the timing of some things and issues of other things, I wasn't able to get any lights or decorations done this year. In the Parsonage I'm appointed to now (my first year year), I have several evergreens, and one of them are being used for the "Tree of Lights" for one of the churches and is plugged into one of the outside outlets on the house. So I guess I can say that I'm not "totally" without decorations around me, but we'll see next year how the decoration ideas will come about. I have some of ideas and desires, but there are some things to take care of ahead of time.
As long as the KEY reason for celebrating Christmas is celebrating the birth of our Savior and the hope, love, joy, and peace that comes with it. Check.
We need to remember that Christmas isn't always about what we have, but what other don't. Check.
At all times, we need to remember that there are people that we associate with that can't "celebrate" because something has hit them hard at their work or in their lives that remind us to especially pray for them. Check.
So I guess I can say that as much as time have changed and things are different, Christmas was pretty good.
