Ho, Ho, Humbug

I don't have a lot of Christmas spirit, yet. This is not a new occurrence. It happens around this time every year. Sometimes I think that if it weren't for my kids, I would more less ignore the holiday season altogether, except for midnight mass on Christmas Eve, when I can really feel the true meaning of it all.
I haven't always been this way. I used to LOVE Christmas as a kid. I always thought our living room looked positively magical after my parents got through decorating it with all the lights, ribbons and candles. There was gingerbread and rum balls and homemade eggnog and rides around in the car to see the lights at other houses, especially in a little mill town in North Carolina right up the road from where I grew up, called McAdenville, which is known as Christmas Town USA.
When I was a younger mother, I wanted to make the kids' Christmas memorable and special as possible. I remember the year my oldest son was 4. He and his dad took our pickup truck to a Christmas tree farm and brought home not one, but two trees. My husband proclaimed we would have a decorating competition. Mine was the "tastefully" decorated tree that would make Martha Stewart proud. My husband's had those big old lights that got hot enough to melt tinsel and lots of garland and cheap glass ornaments. My son delighted in running between the rooms where we were working and "helping" us. That was the year that my younger son turned one just a few days before Christmas, and was the first time I ever went to midnight mass. I was actually moved to tears by the experience.
In later years, I still want the holiday to be special for the kids, but more and more, find myself working harder to instill in the kids the real "Reason for the Season." Catholic school helps, but they are bombarded with toy ads and start bugging us for gifts earlier every year. It doesn't help my disposition when the same shelves that held tacky Halloween stuff on Monday are full of tacky Christmas stuff on Tuesday. And frankly, six or seven weeks of piped in Christmas music does not inspire me to spend more at Target or Wal Mart or even at Neiman Marcus where it is played by a real person on a real piano. I honestly think that if I were in charge, no Christmas music would be played anywhere earlier than say December 20.
Two years ago, my husband and I took our two oldest boys to Rome, flying out on Christmas Day (it's cheaper!) Because my hubby is one of the most frequent flyers in the country, he has connections in the airline industry and got us a behind the scenes tour of a major US airport where we had a layover. Until that day, I don't think that I ever had considered all the people that have to work on Christmas. Like it or not, it's just another day for many. That made me more appreciative of the day and the sacrifices that others make so that people like me can be free to experience the joy of the day with our loved ones.
Last Christmas, I was pregnant and had just begun recovering from a severe illness. I was tired and cranky and did not feel Christmassy at all. Luckily, my husband had taken over the present shopping (online) and many Amazon boxes appeared magically on my front porch. We actually had everything wrapped and under the tree before dark on Christmas Eve. My kids, led by my oldest son. put up the tree and outdoor decorations. Remarkable!
So, here we are on the eve of December and I am already sick of the music in the stores and on the radio, but all of our presents are here and will be wrapped in the next few days, and we already have our outside lights on the house (thanks of course to "wire boy", my oldest son who loves doing anything with electrical devices). Then, today as I walked into the grocery store, I caught a whiff of something familiar... It was the smell of the fresh cut Christmas trees lined up along the front of the store. Suddenly, it all came flooding back, the Christmas spirit. I am not 100% enthusiastic yet, but I am better. So, let me be among the first to hope that you have a very merry Christmas. I plan to .