Christmas
*I ran out of steam while writing this and never came back to it, so I’ll just post it as is.
So much has happened in the past month or so that I couldn’t begin to describe it. I did feel that I should say something about Christmas though, being that I am the only window into the Christian experience for some people. Then I did some back checking, and apparently I did not feel this need in previous years. So maybe I needn’t bother. Or maybe it’s way overdue. I tend to overthink things.
So, just to get it out of my system, let’s pretend someone has asked me, “How was your Christmas?” To which I would reply in typical fashion, “Better than Thanksgiving.” Which sounds like an answer, but actually says almost nothing at all.
“How so?” you ask.
I stepped on a bee on Thanksgiving Day. It’s the third or fourth time I’ve done that. (Not usually on Thanksgiving, just on the bee.) So I was popping Benadryl and smearing Cortizone on my swollen foot for three or four days, and I didn’t even tell anyone about it. Why? Because nobody asked. Not that I would expect it to occur to anyone to ask if I happened to have been walking around barefoot outside and chanced to step on anything unpleasant. But no one even asked, “How was your Thanksgiving?” At least, not anyone that I thought was looking for an answer more detailed than, “Fine, how was your’s?” The whole Thanksgiving holiday weekend was pretty terrible actually. I like to say that God kicked my butt for four days straight, and just to keep it interesting, on the third day He came around and punched me in the face. In fact, when I was making a list in my journal of all the things going on, the bee slipped my mind. It was that kind of weekend.
So Christmas? …Better than that. To be perfectly honest, I really just haven’t had much interest in Christmas for the past couple of years.