Meditation of the Week 12-27-06

Is Christmas over?

The radio stations have gone back to playing their “normal” music. The twinkling lights around town are coming down. The “75% off After Christmas” sales have begun and store shelves are strewn with only tattered remnants of Christmases past. The dumpsters and garbage cans are teetering under the weight of boxes, bows and shredded wrapping paper – trash that had once been the glorious boxes elegantly wrapped and placed lovingly beneath our trees.

On Christmas morning, I watched presents being pulled from the seemingly heaping mounds of gifts beneath the fragile hand-cut tree. My siblings and I had chosen to forego the name drawing this year, and since there was no Significant Other to stuff my stocking, there were no packages or stocking beneath that tree for me. I became acutely aware this year how alone I am, while at the same time, how truly blessed I am.

I have decided that Christmas is more than all that commercial stuff. This year, my holiday lasted three days and was spent in my sister’s home, surrounded by my family. All of my family – mom and dad and dad’s wife, as well as my siblings, their spouses and our children. It was an amazing adventure full of laughter and joy and love. So much love.

I am grateful, indeed, for the blessing of family. I am grateful for a warm home to congregate in and delicious food to eat. I am grateful for Norman Rockwell moments around the kitchen island, licking the bowl clean of the Red Velvet Cake batter with my mother, brother and sister. I am grateful for witnessing the delight of my nephew’s first taste of that luscious chocolate magic, as he licked it from the spoon and spread it from cheek to cheek. I am grateful I was able to watch my beautiful daughter’s light up – even though she knows the Christmas Truth, she still chooses to believe in the spirit. I am grateful for laughter over Darts and snow angels and jingle bells. I am grateful for the love that filled every corner of that house, filling every space even more fully than the presents.

And, even though Christmas is coming down around me, it still lingers inside. For that, I am truly grateful.

©Angie K. Millgate 12/27/06