Charging into the Christmas season

Okay, so it's not here yet, but not so you could tell by appearance. Christmas lights are going up around the county, there is a bazaar and holiday sale and usually several going on every weekend and the calendar is jammed with events. Surely it must be almost Christmas.

While the children are not nestled all snug in their beds, they are on Christmas holiday countdown with the anticipation of long days and late nights with no repercussions for sleep deprivation.

I have a love-hate relationship with this season. I love the decorations, the lights and of course, the happy moods and music of the people that also love it all. I love the things we do this time of year we never seem to find time for the other 11 months of the year, like cook peanut brittle and fudge and mail cards to people we should stay in better touch with anyway.

I hate the commercialism that started shoving the holiday down our throats in August. Okay, not supposed to hate. I loathe it then. I tolerate those things that take the fun and joy out of Christmas only because I know it is ONLY ONE DAY.

ONE DAY people. It is over with in 24 hours. It is about the birth of our savior and Lord, Jesus Christ and when we get to the other side of everything else that we've woven into it, it's still about that.

I have redneck Norman Rockwell memories of Christmas. The pines, the snow, the sledding, the tree decorating, the big family gatherings, the baking, the wrapping, the anticipation ... it was redneck only because we were --rural as they get and not looking to get any more civilized than the world made us.

Somewhere in those simple roots I find the joy in the holiday today along with a sadness for those that think THIS is it.

Find someone to share a Norman Rockwell moment with this holiday season. Sit, visit, sip some Wassail or cocoa. Stop the busy, stop the fuss and give the gift of time, the gift of yourself in that time.