The Small Matter of … Christmas

I’m a bit of a Christmas failure this year.

There’s nine days until Christmas and I’m yet to shop. Yet. To. Shop. I never intended to leave it quite so late – I had every good intention to be organised and have gorgeous gifts neatly wrapped in pretty piles around the house. But the intention never quite became a reality.

I’m yet to write my Christmas cards. Well, I’ve written a few and have handed them out at the appropriate Christmas break up dinners, but I’ve still got a list as long as my arm to get through.

I’m yet to bake homemade goodies for the people that appreciate them. Or play a single Christmas carol.

Worst of all, I’m yet to feel like it’s Christmas time. And I hate that.

I love Christmas – the presents and the cheer and the bon bons and the baubles and the carols and the food – but it doesn’t feel like Christmas time yet. I know it is Christmas time – I can see it in the stars and tinsel lining the city streets, in the decorations flooding shopping centres, in the disgusting amount of junk mail cluttering my letter box, in the Silent Nights and Jingle Bells chiming out of stores, but I can’t feel it.

And that makes me wonder if Christmas is a time for children, more than anyone else? I remember being young and December feeling like it went forever. I remember the wonderful Christmas movies that were repeated every year but never lost their appeal. I remember the excitement. And it being a time to catch up with cousins and family and play long into the night. I remember the anticipation, the count down. Being unable to sleep on Christmas Eve. Waking up at 3am on Christmas day and running to see what goodies awaited under the tree. Finishing school with an arm full of Christmas themed drawings.

I see the same pattern emerging with my nephews and nieces – I see their excitement and the enjoyment they have throughout the whole month of December. And it makes it more exciting for me, too. Children have such life and spirit and it’s infectious, and I’m truly grateful to be able to share my Christmas with children around.

But right now, nine days before Christmas, I’m yet to feel it. It has nothing to do with shopping or cards or tasks and lists. I don’t dread the work I have to complete in the coming days. I doubt that having presents wrapped and ready to go would make me feel anything else except organised. I hear carols but they evoke nothing more than a disgruntled sigh from me in shopping centres.

Perhaps soon I will feel it – in a memory or a smell or a movie – and when I do I’ll be sure to remember exactly what triggers the feeling. Because for something that comes once a year – with so much build up and anticipation – it’s over awfully fast. Perhaps we should treasure how Christmas makes us feel, rather than what we get as presents or where we have to rush to on the day, because, if I’m anything to go by, we’ve kind of forgotten.

Merry Christmas, dear Trespassers. I wish you all a wonderful, jolly time over the festive season – and, more than anything, I hope you feel it too.

Image by Sashomasho on Flickr