It's Just Not Right

Shopping, decorating, present wrapping, readying for the Christmas feast. Cookie baking, nut cracking, visiting, gift delivering. Package mailing, family gathering arranging, mistletoe hanging, Christmas tree watering. Fallen-needle vacuuming. More shopping.

Choir practicing, card addressing, carol playing, evergreen wreath smelling.

All those lovely preparations; all that frantic activity.

I'm not doing any of it. It feels weird. It's just not right.

I love Christmas time. Since it is my birthday time too - I was a Christmas Eve baby - it is really MY big holiday for the year. I don't usually find it stressful or frantic, even though I'm not one of those people who has just the right gifts purchased and wrapped 3 months in advance. Since my family has had a long tradition of giving tree ornaments instead of expensive gifts, I have an incredibly beautiful tree every year. And since I started collecting 'Santas' about 10 years ago, my house is usually decorated with that jolly old elf in dozens of places - peeking out from under lamp shades, hanging from curtain rods, propped on bookshelves, ledges and tables. (Mark wanted them counted last year - and there were maybe of 80 of them!)

And then there is the Christmas Cantata. I don't remember when we started doing that as a family - but it was years ago. I am from a 'singing' family (which surprises guests to birthday parties when we sing 'Happy Birthday' in perfect key) and we sang in a church choir together years ago and learned a 'Cantata' that I managed to also learn to play on the piano. For many years, we gathered over Christmas to sing it together - 4 part harmony and full choir voice strength (it is a BIG family.) My father would do the narration part in between and just sit there and grin the whole time we were singing.

But this year the piano is in Kentucky, I'm in Seattle, and the rest of the singers are in Arizona.

I'm missing it this year, but next year... look out!