Holiday Blahs

It's happened again. About the third year in a row. I've succumbed to the gift-giving pressure and gotten burned out. When am I gonna get it through my head that Christmas isn't about getting- not even getting that good feeling you get when you give someone something, or even that feeling of relief when you have fulfilled social expectations. Whether it's getting kicks from all the gifts we open, or getting kicks from the gifts we give, we have still reduced Christmas to the spirit of getting.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I used to enjoy Christmas so much as a kid. The anticipation, the music, the lights, the smells, the good food, and the visits with family and friends, and, yes, the lovely piles of beribboned, brightly colored packages. What's wrong with that?

It's just that now, I have my hands full keeping meals on the table and laundry done, etc, without all the extra, albeit fun, projects. And I've also grown up a little more and am giving our culture of affluence a hard, critical look.

This year, I wanted to do something different, something to avoid the postal-parking lot-shopping-baking scramble and investigate a facet of Christmas I've usually only read about. This year, I want to find Jesus somewhere and invite him to come share Christmas dinner with us, maybe offer him shelter for the night, clean clothes and, well, we'll see.

But maybe I don't need to look any farther than those crazy, dirty little monsters I've been screaming at for misbehaving- "the least of these my brethren".