Christmas Eve was a mad dash of work, mayhem, marathon eating, the traditional receiving and giving of gifts and running around the greater tidewater area. Once my family and I arrived safely home and commenced our own particular yearly tradition of prepping the house for our annual solstice traditions, it did not take us long to fall into our routines of secretive wrapping, skulking from room to room in an attempt to avoid contact with anyone who may be lurking around a corner in an attempt to get a glimpse at what sort of goodies may be hiding within the cavernous, self exiled cell filled with ribbons, bows and obnoxiously printed paper.
I made more than several trips to the trash can with over filled black plastic bags, specifically purchased for the sole purpose of hiding the manufacturers packaging of products that were put into said packaging by extremely frustrated, angry and underpaid employees from foreign countries. These employees sole purpose seems to be to throw fuel on the fires of frustration parents have been feeling since the beginning of the holiday season.
Paper cuts, abrasions caused by plastic and torn fingernails are wounds we go to great lengths to hide but are easily ignored by the wide eyed, adrenaline filled offspring that wakes us all up at the butt crack of dawn in an attempt to discover the treasures that lie under the lighted, adorned and tinseled faux wooden emblem of the season. Bleary eyed we stumble through our homes, our eyes feel as if the interior of our eyelids are made of eighty grit sandpaper, the harshness of our pre-brushed mouth seems to be only a minor irritant as we make our way to the well worn seat cushion on our favorite living room piece of furniture.
If you are lucky and you’ve thought ahead, your automatic coffee pot will either have already made or is in the process of making you a pot of ebony, bitter, acrid life giving plasma. If not, you have to settle for stale orange juice and three-day old almost too hard to eat bread to help kick start your morning celebration of peace and tranquility.
This is the century of the Simpsons and Griffins Christmas, not Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers or even the Brady’s. Our lives are so filled with demands of time, energy and pressure we seem to lose the peace and tranquility. I know I have. I stated in my last blog I was having difficulty in finding my Christmas spirit this year. And, now that Christmas has arrived like an unwanted credit card bill, I still have not completely found what I’ve been searching for. I feel a bit more in the spirit but I still have not sold out completely.
I don’t know if I will be able to.
I hope, I pray and I’ve even gone so far as to try and fleece myself into the experience what everyone else around me seems to be having. It’s tough to have a void where your good will once was. A vacuum that seems to do nothing drink in all of the happiness you used to feel. The simplest, most innocent actions leave me feeling numb or wanting more.
Am I closer than I was a week ago? Yes I am.
Will I eventually receive the one gift I’m looking for? Hopefully.
Am I going to celebrate if and when I do? Fo-Shizzle!
Here’s hoping you all had a great Christmas and I’ll talk to you all real soon.
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