December with some thoughts on Christmas…
It’s now December. That means Christmas is just on the horizon (23 days from today — yikes). I’ve got my December cup. Isn’t it beau-ti-ful? I saw it in October and fell in love with it. To me it screams December/Christmas with a bit of Dr. Seuss thrown in for giggles. So, hopefully this cup will see me through all the stress and strain of the holiday season.
I love Christmas with all my heart. Not the commercialism of Christmas but the spirit. The love that just seems to come out at Christmas time. Though after the stampedes on Black Friday and the resultant deaths — its seems that the spirit of Christmas has been lost in the greed of Christmas. Maybe the reading of A Christmas Carol should be mandatory for everyone during this month.
I love that story and the movies made of it. I think I own at least four variations on the story. Believe it or not, The Muppet Christmas Carol is actually the closest to the book.
I’ve heard too many parents who are convinced that the only way to show love to their children is to spend, spend, spend. Too many children equate how many gifts they get (and how much they cost) with how much their parents love them. And everyone is trying to keep up appearances with some mythical family named Jones.
Love can’t be measured in money and things. It springs from the heart and is best measured in time — time spent listening, time spent together. Gifts are fine but they don’t replace or represent love. A gift is a thing, a possession that will in time break down, fall apart, stop working, or be outgrown. Love only grows stronger as time goes by (probably why it makes such a nice song title).
Our Christmases have always been sparse on gifts. At first because I was a single parent working two full-time and one part-time job while going to school. Luckily most of my jobs were late evening and night, so I could spend some daytime with my son. But Christmas was a time to open our gift (that’s not a misprint — gift, singular) have a good meal, watch Christmas movies, play games, cuddle up with hot chocolate and have me read to him. As time passed things changed, but Christmas has always been a time to spend with family — visiting, talking, laughing, just being together.
So, in these economic hard times, think about purging your Christmas gift list. Keep it to immediate family. If necessary eliminate the adults or draw a name out of a hat for the adults, and buy for the children. Set a monetary limit you can afford and stick to it. Have a contest to see who can make the best gift from found items or under a certain amount.
Decide if traveling over hill-and-dale is worth it. Is it now time to start your own Christmas traditions in your own home and phone/ICU/IM family to wish them happy holidays? We stopped the holiday visits to those outside the nuclear family when we moved out of state and found they still expected us to come to them. Now we have our own traditions of Christmas. We cuddle up and watch Christmas movies while dinner cooks or admire the tree and spend time being together. Of course, Christmas is now just the two of us (son stays in Rhode Island for that holiday).
The trick, especially now, is forget what you’ve done before. Don’t spend more than you can afford — and that means limit severely the use of credit cards. Try to think of interesting ways to make the holidays fun for the family that don’t cost a lot of money. Visit some of the free events in the area — here we have many Festival of Lights places that take donations per carload. Some places are free. Many museums have Christmas displays — take the family. Maybe a local theater is having a production of A Christmas Carol. Talk with your children about the changes you want to make and ask for their help and suggestions — you may be surprised by their response (positively surprised). Children are more aware of what’s happening around them than most people give them credit for and if you ask for their input, they just may be willing to understand and help.
Anyway, the object is to have a very Merry Holiday without going into debt or being trampled in a stampede, or worrying about that mythical Jones family — while many people may have the same last name, I don’t think they exist.