Well, I made it. Shopping on Saturday actually wasn’t so bad. I mean…it took me six hours with the traffic and sardine-esque parking lots and check-out lines resembling the Great Wall of China. But it all worked out! I got everything except for Cody’s gift…which I got last night.

So I am ready to settle in a celebrate Christmas. As a full-time working adult, I find myself wishing we had two weeks off like we did in school…two weeks full of friends, family, movies, coffee, sleeping in, books, enjoying life.

Not that I don’t enjoy life normally. I really do. There just seems to be less time to do it. Or maybe I am more giving with my time around Christmas? Time seems to be more lax…the schedule seems to be a little more optional…bedtime gets stretched back about two hours. I send more notes in the mail (ha, well, Christmas cards), give more gifts, give more hugs, smile more, donate more money, make more phone calls, eat more good food,  see family more, see friends more, even work out more, etc.

It’s too bad we only make these things a priority around Christmas. Our time is FILLED with these things around Christmas. And we all feel happier and blessed because of it. So why not drag it out the rest of the year? I feel like when it’s back to work in January, all of a sudden all that life is drained from our day and we are convinced we don’t have the time or energy for it. When really, we do, we are just not choosing to do it.

I think this will be my goal…starting now. To give a good and honest effort to take the Christmas spirit  and tuck it away for the rest of the year and next year. To do all these things and be more thankful because the only Christmas  you are guaranteed is the one you’re in. And when it’s only once a year, that’s not very much.

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
-Hamilton Wright Mabie