Nathan and I had our very own personal Christmas Eve this year. As much as I would love to say we had lights and a tree and dinner and all that, I can't. It was good, but it wasn't a shiny out-of-the-box Christmas. Maybe when we get a house.
Because I am still seven years old and couldn't wait any longer, we opened the presents from each other at two o clock. Turns out we don't have the computer power to run the Lego Star Wars game I got Nathan, but everything else worked out nicely.
We inherited a ham, which we finally got 'round to making. I say inherited because someone sent it to TD Chad sometime last year. It sat in the theatre's freezer for a year and TD Chad decided it was time to throw it out. Nathan decided he wanted it.
To be fair, it wasn't bad.
And now, my hair's almost all dry (I took a shower three hours ago, and refuse to use a hair dryer unless in an emergency) so it's bedtime soon. Tomorrow we're going to my uncle's house for Christmas Day. On Monday we're having Christmas Day Part II at Nathan's brother's.
Christmas for me, because I will admit to being wholly secular in my celebration, is about a feeling. I know a lot of people get really upset around Christmas, and it's one of the most depressing holidays (Charlie Brown agrees), but I think that somehow it's mostly about hope.
Maybe I'm thinking of all the movies that've come out in December the last few years, but LOTR, Narnia, HP, Star Wars, they're all about hope. I think that's what Christmas is about, about hoping that next year will be just as good in some ways, and better in others. It's hoping to be happy and healthy, and in good spirits, with good friends. Christmas is, to me, what Thanksgiving ought to be, I guess, but somehow I think Thanksgiving has become about food and football in a way that Christmas isn't.
I don't think it's just about getting things, because it's about giving things. Giving time, and seeing people, and time to do things that just aren't done any other time of the year. I just can't be jaded about Christmas because I have had some relatively awful Christmases, and every year I still look forward to it and hope it can be everything I want it to be. Probably the last time it was, I was five, but every year I try to make it be that happy, and that warm, and important.
Be happy, healthy, and of good cheer tomorrow, and, as Ebenezer Scrooge once said on his knees, keep Christmas "in the past, the present and the future".