Could I Have Another Week....

before Christmas?

If I had another week, I might actually get everything done....I might actually get some real Christmas spirit.

Or not.

I've never been one to shop or decorate early. Part of it is my temperament--I do everything best at the last minute. Part of it is that I really don't want to celebrate Christmas as early as the dominant culture wants me to. Part of it has been time. When I was a student, and then when I was teaching, I would finish up everything around Dec. 15-20, and hit the ground running. I would shop and cook and decorate, and somehow in that whirlwind of activity I usually ended up feeling at Christmasy by the time Dec. 25 arrived.

This year there isn't any end of the semester. In fact my schedule gets busier and busier as Christmas gets closer and closer. So I've been trying to get things done a little at a time--with three of four kids grown and scattered around the globe, we've cut way back on gift giving, so shopping is relatively easy. I've got most everything but some stocking stuffers bought. I need to wrap and mail some things, and I need to finish printing pictures for the album I'm making for my mother.

The house is a mess, though, and we just got around to buying the tree today (not unusual for me for it to be this late, but I didn't anticipate trees being almost gone by now! That wasn't the case in Seminary City or my previous New England location). And there's no food in the house, so a major grocery run is in order (how I do miss Fresh Direct!). I'm preaching Christmas Day, and I need to get that sermon written before Christmas Eve for sure, since we have three services that evening (4pm with pageant, 6pm and 11pm). I've long since given up on sending Christmas cards, and I'm choosing not to bake because neither Sk8tr Boy nor I need to have all those cookies around the house.

I'm really not as scroogish or sad as I've been some years. But I just don't have any enthusiasm for the holiday. I've been thinking a lot about my state of mind this time of year. Maybe it's not so much Christmas itself (although I think it's secular expression is way out of control) as it is all the associations that are linked to the holiday for me. There were some Christmases that were truly bad...like the one when all my kids were away with their father, and I was snowed/iced in (in Florida no less) and and the person I was seeing was being a jerk and I spent Christmas day all alone, and the one when I knew my father was dying. And there were the Christmases when finances were such that I didn't know how I would buy presents for everyone (it always worked out in the end, but it was extremely stressful). But Christmas is also the time of year that I most miss having a spouse/partner to share things with, and it's when I most feel my semi-estrangement from my mother and siblings.

This year I am also badly missing the city. It's funny how I only lived there for three years, but miss it more than just about any other place I've lived. I live now in a place that people flock to for vacations, and to retire; it's beautiful and all that, but I'm not sure it's a place I really want to stay. It' s hard for me to say that--I like my job just fine, and I've always prided myself on being able to adapt to new places and be happy anywhere and I have much to be grateful for here. But so far I just don't like it all that much. All this is compounded by being lonely. A clergy person can't really be friends with parishioners, and I haven't really met anyone outside of the congregation yet.

So this is turning into a major whine.....not sure I meant it to be that, but there it is.