A Christmas moment

Here we are heading into another Xmas time and the madness of the holiday season has well and truly set in!

We have friends who have reported their cars stolen to the police only to realise a day or so later that they forgot they left it outside a local store and walked home after some frenzied xmas shopping on a foggy brained after party day!! We also have friends who have lost wallets, (and nearly me except all I had done was to put my wallet on the bed while hubby was asleep in it...he sleeps restlessly and managed to get my wallet twisted neatly into the doona where it lay hidden for some time until I decided to tidy up and make the bed...I had of course raced around town tracing and retracing my steps in a mad search for it first!).

We have friends who pop over ostensibly for coffee, but who are in reality making a short escape from in-laws with the hope of some commiseration. We have the inevitable shock of finding out that low and behold on separate shopping trips to separate shopping centres we have still managed to purchase the exact same card, book, shirt as another family member for the same receiving person.....

We have dealt with the usual dramas of this period too, like a blocked sink, heavy rains and leaking roof, constipated puppy, broken outdoor tap, lost key to store room padlock and frozen mobile phone, (though why these things wait for now to manifest I will never know...a little joke on us from the powers that be I guess...not sure I share the sense of humour...)

But we have managed all this with comforting alacrity.....and now we try to gather our resources for the final xmas onslaught of tourists to our little beachside town, unreasonable working hours as a result and general overindulgent socialising!! ( mind you all this socialising is not exactly mine...often it consists of me waiting tensely at home whilst various children set out into their increasingly public world with increasing boldness and a desire for alcoholic beverages’ that has me remembering my errant youth and then getting all the more tense for it....it often also consists of long car rides to drop off or collect giggling troupes of young girls to or from an assortment of party destinations in woop woop on the top of hills, in paddocks, over roads that blend perfectly into their paddocks and where mobile phones struggle to be heard...ahh the giddiness of youth...which is not the same as the giddiness of menopause to be sure... ! )

But still I care for Xmas, without huge attendant Christian sensitivities, I still appreciate the ethos of the moment, peace for all mankind and love to all.....family connecting in the midst of their busy lives and personal goals, to remember to say by this very action, we belong and we are glad... the memory of Santa sacks at the bottom of my childhood bed, and a once a year trifle, filled with custard and jelly and all the things I generally avoid or indeed shun with forcefulness.... xmas carols ( which have to be carefully timed in deference of hubby’s distaste for them..Xmas Grinch that he is!) And if you are brave the wearing of reindeer antlers or Santa hats in public...I definitely do care for xmas and make a show of decorating the house and tree...because it reminds me of the lighter days of my own childhood, it honours the dreaming days of my now growing children, it allows me time to contemplate a vaster world, and reminds me to put that little bit of extra effort into caring for it...

In truth we need a little of this Xmas spirit every moment...keeping alive our goodness, our wonder, our hearts, our hope and our little children within....

“ I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why this is Christmas Day!'" ~ Ray Stannard Baker, pseud. David Grayson (1870-1946), American author, journalist.