I'll spare you the five hundred paragraph post that would be required to bring my five readers up to date on my quiet, beautiful, hectic little life.
Instead, I'll just leave you knowing that I have never been happier for a Christmas break (High school has not been kind), we've had several bouts of sickness in our family, I've fallen quite in love with Autumn and sunsets and cold air, and basically life, once more, and I find myself running quite behind on Christmas gifts.
Which can basically sum up the last few months, but also doesn't even come close to doing just that.
Instead I'm just going to start from here and now, because I've found that works quite well.
Christmas is almost upon us, and I've gotten most of my gifts sorted out for my numerous siblings. The key word here is most. I still have to get something for Madison, Adrienne, and my mom and dad. Oh yes, and my grandmother. But on the bright side, I have gifts for my five other siblings ready.
I've found that the older I get, the less excited I get about Christmas. And it made me sad, last year being about the first time I realized that I wasn't filled with constant thrills of joy and excitement, and I was sadly aware that I fell asleep rather easily on Christmas Eve.
But maybe, and please bear with the Halmark channel cheesiness here, that's because Christmas is quite a bit more than not being able to sleep on the night before, and the joy of ripping off all that wrapping paper.
Because I've found this year, as keep waiting for myself to be filled with wonderful excitement, that it's just not happening. I'm not, no matter how much I wish to be, ecstatic about the gifts already piling up under the tree.
But there is so much Christmas in the candlelight service my church held last week, where we heard the story of Mary and baby Jesus, and then sang Christmas songs. And it filled me up with something I wasn't sure how to feel at all.
And then tonight, when I spent all day at my best friends house, and me and my older siblings sat together with our friends and watched Scrooge (which I can't honestly say I like watching more than once.), and Annie, and were just laughing and being together. And in a moment of cliche-ness, I looked at their Christmas tree, and the lights from it made the room warm and cozy, and I was just kind of like, "I think this is what Christmas is now."
Because gifts are only exciting for so long, and trees will go back to the garage or attic or wherever, along with the ornaments and lights. But the reason for the season, if I may borrow the overused phrase, will, I feel, linger with me. Because Jesus is gonna stay in my heart forever, and Christmas is finally starting to bring that into sharp relief, and maybe that's what it's all about.
Those Christmas songs, and that laughter and peace, are going to be in my soul for a long, long time.
And that is, I think, what I'm discovering Christmas to be once I stop and think about it.
So, I hope you all find joy this beautiful holiday season, and that your heart loves Christmas as much as mine is starting to.
Merry Christmas.
