And speaking of Santa, my mother-in-law and I are in the middle of making these cute Santa cookies using Nutter Butter cookies dipped in white chocolate. We're only halfway through, because we have dipped the hat side and we're waiting for that to dry before we dip the beard side. So I don't have a picture of our cookies, but I have this one that I stole from a website:
But in spite of the whimsical websites and the cute cookies, I'm not feeling it this Christmas. It just feels like too much, not just with the shopping and the wrapping and the travel, but with the pressure to be so jolly and happy all the time. And sometimes the pressure to be jolly and happy is, ironically, what does you in and makes you the opposite of jolly and happy. Am I making a magical enough Christmas for my child? Am I being helpful and cheerful with my relatives?
And this year I'm feeling a lot of pressure and sadness on behalf of others. So many people who are saying, This is the first Christmas since my [insert close relative here] passed away. Or even people who have endured many Christmases since a loved one's passing, and it just never gets any easier. It's always hard at Christmas. And I'm sad for Katie, whose friend just died in a car accident, and sad for his family who I don't even know.
And then I have friends in situations where their extended family gets together and there's some kind of drama that doesn't even involve them, but involves two other relatives who have some long-standing beef with each other, and somehow everybody is uncomfortable.
And it all just seems like too much this year.
But I don't want to be a Grinch. And so I want to come back to Santa here. This is embarrassing to admit, but I believe in Santa. No, I don't believe there's a million-year-old guy in the North Pole with a team of elves and some flying reindeer that somehow help him deliver toys to all the children of the world in one night. But I do believe in the spirit of Santa. I'm not sure how the whole legend of Santa got started, but there must have once been some old man who gave toys to random children at Christmas. And I think that guy's spirit is still alive. I think after all the people who get in screaming matches over cutting in line at Toys 'R Us, and all the return trips to the grocery store because you forgot to get thus-and-so, on Christmas Eve somehow everything slows down and the magic comes out. And I think that magic is, somehow, a manifestation of the spirit of Santa. So I'm hoping for a little Ho, Ho, Ho to come into my life tonight, and I'm hoping the same happens for you.
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