Wow! In spite of my sister Timmy’s poor opinion of my housekeeping skillz, the Xmess box is all packed up and sitting in the hall!
Where it’s been for the last year. Actually, more than a year.
Last year, I hauled it out of the garage sometime in early December, thinking that if I felt like it, I’d get around to putting up the Christmas tree and decorations. But last year was the first one after Mom passed away, and I never did get around to it, although I felt horribly anxious about the countdown to Christmas, and positively in the dumps Christmas Eve and the next morning.
This year, I still didn’t feel like getting around to it, yet again felt horribly anxious as the days went by – even when I was home for the week, I just couldn’t bring myself to fuss around making the house look festive.
I just didn’t feel all that festive, although I did get my small amount of shopping done (and presents wrapped) early.
And then Christmas Eve rolled around – I had to work, but had an early schedule and got out at a little after4pm. David and I made fajitas, and dubbed them “Christmas fajitas” because they actually did look pretty cheery. I had Roma tomatoes and there were green peppers, you see (and the Romas were really good and full of flavor, and sliced into nice long wedges).
At the big 9pm service at Holy Moly, we sang and sang, and it turned out really, really well, so that we in the choir were happy with all the hard work. And I noticed that a lot of people really seemed to be connecting with the music and the liturgy… there weren’t a lot of dry eyes in the place and also people didn’t immediately head out when it was over. And as I drove home, I realized that I didn’t need all the trappings and decor and fuss and bother to get that good Christmas feeling, and didn’t need to try to recreate in one gargantuan effort the lost Yuletide magic of my childhood.
Especially not at 1130pm on Christmas Eve.
And now, at last, the Xmess box has actually been taken into the garage and put away.
I had been carrying on a conversation via email with an old friend earlier in the year, and I was able to laugh off the whole “Chrismas Box is in the hall” thing then with her then, but I’m glad to finally get it in the garage where it belongs.
Via: Flickr Title: The xmess box By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 27 Dec ’07, 1.14pm CST PST
You’re quite right that it isn’t about the decorations, even if I still give my mother a hard time about the “Christmas Chair,” which is what we arranged gifts lovingly around after she decided trees—including fake ones—were messy and that getting the boxes of decorations down from the rafters was really just asking for encounters with silverfish bugs. Magical childhood memories likely being figments of our retroactive imaginations anyway, we can just as easily attach great meaning to the Christmas Chair and the Xmess Box.
By the way, great blog name. I’m jealous I didn’t think of it myself.
Thank you, thank you, bless you, bless you! This is the first real comment I’ve had in weeks and weeks – I’ve been getting a ton of that “Found this great post checkitout” trackback spam.
The Christmas Chair sounds like a pretty good tradeoff for not having to mess with trees, fake or otherwise. The other day, Riley the Cat had a touch of the upchuckies, and part of what came up appeared to be artificial needles from the fake tree… which hasn’t been erected in two years. Which says something about the state of the front hall, and the clutter behind which such things lurk.
Next topic is probably going to be along the lines of “We Three Blind Mice,” in keeping with the holiday theme and some recent uninvited guests we’ve had.
Cheers!