Shining Thru

What do you do after the holidays when everything is cleaned up and you’ve visited with everyone that you haven’t seen in awhile, all of the presents are opened and most of them are being played with?  Now you’re missing the familiarity of home and your loved ones back at home.  Your own bed, kitchen, couch, etc….you find out that you miss the comfort of being in your own home.  Tired of living in someone’s guest rooms or several different guests rooms, moving from house to house to see all of the different people, family and friends.  If it’s out of choice or obligation, there comes a point that the visiting just gets tiring and you’re ready to be back at home.  It’s nice to see everyone and spend some time, but eventually it gets kind of old, even if you haven’t spent the whole holiday time with the same people.

What happens when you’re ready to go home.  You need to go back and do everything that you left undone at home.  Spend time with the loved ones from back at home.  Feel loved and happy in your own home.  Be held and able to relax around the town you have come to think of as home….

Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue; balls and stars glowing from the corner on the Christmas tree.  Presents piled under the low branches, surrounding the beauty of the tree.  Snow on the ground outside the window, reflecting the lights that are on the house and in the yard.  Santas on the corners.  People giving holiday greetings and smiles.  Relaxing nights at home with the family.

Then you turn on the news and see all of the people stuck in the airports or stuck in the snow somewhere.  Especially with the snow storms this year hitting in places that aren’t equipped to deal with the type of snow fall that has been happening.  Trees weighed down with the “dusting” of snow.  The power out because of the trees unable to stand up tot he weather that is coming down on them.  Long lines at the stores for all of the last minute shoppers.

There are good sights and bad when it comes to the holidays.  Some filled with love and others filled with frustration. The holidays bring out so many different sides to people and situations that we don’t see any other time throughout the year.  It’s always interesting to see how things will turn out each year.  Will you be someone looking for another flight to get home to the family or relaxing at home with some of the people that you care about and love?  Every year is different.

The Holidays….How do you celebrate?  With friends?  Family?  Does it really matter or are you just happy to have the time off of work?  Do we remember why there is a holiday, or simply get caught up in the commercials, shopping, and Santa?  Trying to get here or there, on to the next obligation….Do we take the time to actually reflect on what we are doing or do we simply go through the routine of trying to make sure that we see everyone and make everyone happy by bring a fruit platter or fudge tins. 

Are the holidays something to look forward to any more or simply something that we have to go through and so we do our duty and meet all of our obligations…..Obligations of the holidays can stretch from buying gifts (which I personally get pleasure from) to making sure you see all of the relatives…even the ones you might not like to be around so much.  Do we see those people because it’s the spirit of the season, or do we do it because we feel obligated to do so.  Sometimes even when we look forward to seeing certain people, once we get there we keep looking at the watch, waiting for dinner to be over, the polite conversation, the amusing stories that really only entertain the person telling them….

Sometimes it can be different.  Sometimes the season can be full of delightful surprises.  I have to wonder at how much we hope for these instead of making them happen?  Sometimes I think that we put too much time into thinking about things and not enough time in simply enjoying what we have and what’s going on. 

Holidays….a time to rejoice and enjoy some relaxation with family and friends…or a time of obligations and misery… I guess that’s up to the person…

jumping surprises at every turn

jousting all around

comments and snide remarks

flying across the spaces

What happened to the holiday spirit?  When did it turn into blowing horns and backed up traffic, agonizing over money and pleasing everyone?  When did the holidays have to be a production instead of a nice quiet time with the family.  Now you’re driving as fast as you can from this place to that, catching a plane, and trying to make everyone happy.  Kids packed into the car, instead of shinning eyes watching for Santa.  It’s nice that some people might still pull off a nice holiday, but it seems like the culture is turning it over to stress and commercialism.  Nobody seems to be trying to just have a nice relaxed vacation with their family, there is always more on the list of things to do…always more responsibilities…always more people to see and make happy….When does it all stop?  When will we figure out to put those things aside and go back to the basics?  When will the stress disappear and when will we be able to ignore the latest add or gimmick?  I wish the holiday season was set back around family and friends…surrounding yourself with loved ones and simply feeling lucky to have those people around you.

I find it very interesting how the holidays affect different people in such drastically different ways.  Some people hate the holidays with a passion, some only hate parts of it:  the shopping, the traffic, the lines, the obligations, etc.  Other people love the holidays and begin prepping a year in advance.  Those are the people that have the Christmas lights up the day after Halloween and leave them there until Valentines Day.  I don’t think that there is anything wrong with either of the approaches, if you avoid friends and family or smother them with it is really irrelevant to me, what is interesting to me is that the same thing can cause such happiness, craziness, and depression all at the same time.  Some people are really impartial to the holidays, but it doesn’t seem like many.  It seems like if they celebrate Christmas they either love it or hate it.  I personally love it, but that’s just me.  I love to find the gifts and wrap them all up.  Holiday lights and decorations make me happy while they disgust others.  There are elements of the holidays that I do not enjoy but because it’s the holidays for me, they don’t seem like such a big deal.  Where as with other people, it’s because it’s the holidays that the smallest thing does seem like a big deal.  Such an interesting contrast in feelings from the people around.

While I enjoyed sleeping in, I woke up to see on the news the long lines, crowds, and car accidents that are the result of Black Friday.  I did also learn on the news that it gets the name because it is usually this day that makes the stores move from the red into the black to make a profit, which I found interesting….

I just don’t see why anyone would put themselves through the mess that the stores become…why get up at 2 or 3am and go wait in line outside of the store to open and get trampled on for the best sale of this or that…I’m just not sure that there are enough savings for me to go wait in line for 45 minutes to an hour at one store and go from one store to the next.  I’ve seen people pack coolers to keep in the car so when they drop off bags they can take a break without losing their parking spot.  Even if I wanted to shop today, by the time I would have arrived at the mall there were only cars circulating the parking lot looking for a space to park in.  People parking across the busy street and risking their lives to go from parking space to the store…just doesn’t seem worth it to me.  However, I know people who do it every year and do save hundreds on their Christmas shopping. 

Just goes to show that one person’s worse nightmare could be another person’s greatest pleasure….