The Day After

Our house this morning, 12/26/14.

December 26, 2014
Day 240

'Twas the day after Christmas,
and all through my home,
not a thing was occurring,
not even a comb.

Andy and I thought and said the same exact thing when we woke up: "the day after".  Neither of us had to work, so we enjoyed a healthy sleep-in this morning.  When I did finally grab my mountain-climbing gear to lug myself out of bed, I walked outside with a long, loud yawn, turned up the heat, and looked around at the aftermath before me.  Little piles of presents here and there, Christmas cards and rolls of wrapping paper not needed now until next year, and everywhere I looked, I saw Christmas Past, right behind me now in the rear-view mirror.

Well, not exactly.  We keep our Christmas decorations up until early to mid-January, so much of the magic and light of the holiday stays around now for a while.  The mess that greeted me this morning will get tidied up in the hours (days) ahead, and we'll keep enjoying the beauty of the season for a while longer.

In this mean time though, I feel immense gratitude, not just for presents received yesterday, but for all the incredible time I spent with family.  I don't think I've laughed so much or felt so loved as I did yesterday in quite a long time.  It was just a beautiful, awesome, wonderful day spent with so many people I love so much.

So wherever you are today as you read this, I wish for you days like I had yesterday.  The aftermath of Christmas is often a messy house and a tall stack of reality to return to, but there's also a mist of love that will last for a long, long while!

My Better Tomorrow

December 19, 2014
Day 233

The Ghost of Christmas Future stares at me emotionless, and watches me writhe in pain.  With every tear I cry, he does nothing.  Just when I'm about to charge at him, he pushes his bony arm straight through me, and I feel all the truth of his message, all the possibility.

I gaze up into his cold, heartless gaze, and suddenly see a candle flame flickering slow and steady.  The more I stare, the more the darkness fades away, until I see the candlelight softly shining in a bright new room.  Christmas has arrived, and I'm still here to enjoy it!

Every year at this time, I watch a bunch of Christmas movies, including Scrooged, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and more.  The one theme they all seem to have is that when they end, you believe the main characters have either turned their lives around or made the world a better place to live in.  I cry at the end of each one, and feel so happy I could jump for joy!

For the first time in many years, I re-read A Christmas Carol this past week.  It's a short book, a novella really, and you can buy it for free on Kindle at this link.  At the end of the story, after Ebenezer has been visited by his three ghosts, he exclaims, "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.  The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me."  And really, that's what every Christmas is about.  We share and listen to stories about Christmases past, we bask in the beauty of the day and the moment here in the present, and we exchange gifts to make each other's futures a bit brighter. 

I still have five more blog days left before Christmas, but I'll say it now anyway.  Thank you for reading along with my random musings here, and Merry Christmas!  For those not feeling merry, I pray something changes in you soon.  I honor and respect your sadness or misery, but I so want you to be happy too.  More than that, I want you to have reason to be happy. 

Enjoy these last few days of pre-Christmas prep, everyone!  And oh yeah: God bless us, every one!

My Ghost of Christmas Past

December 16, 2014
Day 230

So many happy memories, so many fond recollections of days gone by, years gone by, lives long gone.

My Ghost of Christmas Past would undoubtedly show me plenty of joyful occasions from my childhood, as well as tons of happy times from high school, college, and even my 20s and 30s.  Yet the job description, as I understand it, is to bring the person reminders of who they ought to be, and maybe point them to a place in time where they began to change.

Where was this moment, I ask myself.  When did I go from carefree to stressed out, from patient to impatient, and from accepting to judgmental?  How did I get from one place to another, from one kind of person to another?  Why did I let myself change?

At 39 years old, I have high blood pressure, and often get stressed out over the silliest possible things.  Why do I let small matters matter so much?  Why do I permit this?

At 39 years old, I'm too often a very impatient person, watching the clock too often, expecting change too quickly.  Why do I do I allow impatience to rule my life so often?  Why do I permit this?

And at 39 years old, I'm so judgmental so often.  I pass judgment even when I tell myself not to, and far too often feel superior to friends and family for reacting to situations better than they do, or making different choices in words and deeds.  Why do I allow my ego to run rampant like this?  Why do I permit this?

My Ghost of Christmas Past shows me the young man I once was: the happy toddler, the hard-working employee, and the dedicated altar boy and monk.  I see all my best moments, but also some of my turning points, the ways I began to change.  Most of all, I'm haunted by the ways in which my younger self could have made better choices earlier in life. 

I'm grateful for the man I am right now, and appreciate all the ways in which I learned and grew as a human being, but I can't help but see the roads I didn't take, the lessons I never learned, and the choices in retrospect I should not have made.  Like any good Scrooge, I'm left now to ponder my Christmas Past, and more importantly, to learn as much as I can from the long glance backward.