Battelor Griffon

Battelor Griffon
Photo by Diana Robicheaux

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Shawn and I went to Lexington on Christmas Eve to spend time with friends like we have for the past five years or so. We had a great time at BJ and Beth Willenger's house eating their traditional Chinese "A Christmas Story" dinner and watching Svengoolie. Then we went to Carol and Laura Reynolds house to watch the "A Christmas Story" marathon, the "Dead Like Me" marathon and have coffee, pecan pie, black forest cake, and Christmas fudge. We finally left for home at around 5am. We pulled into our driveway in time to hear the churches around us ringing their bells on Christmas morning. And then we went to bed and slept through Christmas Day.

So how important is it to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day? It isn't important at all, not to us anyway. There's so much pressure to buy gifts, get everything just right and be done by December 25th that the stress has sucked all the fun out of the day. So what is the solution? Do we stop celebrating Christmas altogether just to get out from under the stress and the headaches? NO! But we do celebrate it differently now than we used to.

First of all, we don't even think about Christmas until after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Not one Christmas song or special is allowed in our house until then. The Christmas decorations don't go up until sometime in December, sometimes right before Christmas. And when the stress of not getting it "just right" starts to be too much and we find ourselves forgetting what Christmas is about, we sing Zombie Christmas Carols. Yes, that's right, I said Zombie Christmas Carols. It gets all the "bah humbugs" out and puts everything in perspective, believe me.

 And if we have a year like this year where one of us is sick and things don't get done at all, we get to it when we get to it. What's the big deal about December 25th anyway?

Short answer, there isn't one. It's an arbitrary day set as Christmas Day as the Christian answer to the Pagan Winter Solstice celebration and the Jewish Hannukah. No one really knows when Jesus was born, so it's not the date that's important, it's the celebration of his birth and why. And we can do that anytime.

We use the time to enjoy the company of good friends and family and don't worry about "the big day." If we forget something on Christmas Day, we stick it under the tree anyway and unwrap it on New Year's Day, or as we call it, "Oops! We forgot it" day. Besides, there's always better sales after Christmas than before and we don't mind waiting.

So relax! Give yourself a break and enjoy the "Holidays" as a whole, not as single, stress filled day. And I bet your kids will love the second chance to open presents on New Year's day!