Moving On To The Next Holiday.......Stress Management Part 218

I love Christmas.  I have to admit I go spectacularly overboard every year.  It's not, for me, about doing the Martha Stewart, although my home looks very seasonal (or will at the end of next weekend). We have ornaments from my Grandma on down.  We have handmade kid decorations.  We have lights, and candles.  I even go around my office hallways wrapping all the pictures and diplomas to look like enormous presents hanging on the walls (an idea I confess I stole from a Perkins Pancake House thirty or more years ago). But I admit to going seriously insane about presents.

So the idea of doing all of this on a much more restricted budget than I am accustomed to is, well, challenging.  I am a bit ashamed to even put this into words when so many of my neighbors and friends have been made homeless (or at least decoration-less) by recent storms and flooding.  It's like the people who are going to have to let the maid go because of a salary drop - it's hard to work up any sympathy for anybody but the maid.

But I have already warned the kids that we aren't getting as much as usual.  And I am looking at ways to tightly stick to the budget I've set.  My husband and I already attended the local publisher's booksale and got a lot of excellent gifts there for very little.  All of the kids except Babygirl are adults now anyway. And everybody is always happy when their stocking is full of food.

But the season isn't about all of that, and I easily forget.  I get giving mixed up with loving.  I get receiving confused with being loved. And I forget what it's all for.

It's for making a warm place where people feel welcome.  It's for remembering family.  It's for enjoying a homemade eggnog with people who get funnier the more eggnog you drink.  It's about being with people who aren't bored when you tell the story of the traditional Christmas Tree Hunt of your childhood. Again.

And it's about remembering the One whose birth gave us good tidings of great joy. 

So this season my "mindfullness" will be aimed at this:  in my spare quiet moments, I will remember that Baby.  And I will remember.

DeeDee