Dear Xmas,
Well, there you were again this year showing up at my house same time as last year... I suspect you have been cheating because it seems as though I just put you away from 2016 and there you were again!
Life layers are shedding way too fast. Time, not a friend of mine. Where have the years gone?
Xmas, where is the joy you once brought each year? The innocence? The magic? The anticipation and the celebration? It seems that each year passing brings change, and it's not always good.
Oh sure, you still show up with your flickering lights and promises of Christmas Joy, but you have not delivered such joy for a very long time. When you come you bring with you memories of Christmas past, when all was right in the world. Before death. Before divorce. Before separations. Before the loss of innocence.
You are supposed to bring good tidings and great joy, but it seems you've been showing up empty-handed. Nothing to offer but stress, work, guilt, and burdens almost impossible to bear to 'be ready for Xmas day'. Why, Xmas, why? Why did you become such a load to carry when you were once such sheer joy?
You do not speak, yet your lights flicker and shine and smile back at me the same way as always, seeming to taunt. Telling me that it is me at fault and not you.
Time has swept away my years and the many wonderful memories now seem to sting. The past and the present war within my soul. Present, reminding me that past cannot be relived. Past memories do not allow for handing my mom a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Past memories do not let me talk to my sister about Xmas preparations or bake my brother cookies and see the smile on his face when I give them to him. Past memories do not allow for hugs. Physical, heartfelt, joy filled hugs when you can actually be with those loved ones who are no longer a part of this world. Past memories do not bring back the innocence and wonder you once felt as a child waiting for Santa. They remind us that we can't go back. They are but a stepping stone to get to the present.
What's that you say? I need to leave the sting of those memories in the past, it is where they belong?
Wait.
Is that you, Christmas?
I remember seeing you on Christmas Eve night. You brought Joy in the form of two barefoot angels who sang of Your birth. We lit candles that night as you reminded me to "go-light-my-world". Thank You Christmas... for reminding me also that it's not Xmas that is to blame.
Oh Xmas, I am so sorry for blaming you for so many years. It's not your fault. I fell right into the hustle bustle of the season and the buy-buy-buy trap that is set for so many of us. My joy has subsided because I have become indifferent to the materialism brought on by a false celebration of gifts.
Xmas, let's make amends. Let's just relax and enjoy each moment next year for Xmas, you do indeed make my world brighter.
But....
Christmas, IS my world!
So, for another year I say goodbye.... and ask you to rest well this spring, summer, and fall. If God will, I shall see you again next year and we (you and I) will live in the moment while we appreciate with heartfelt joy the stepping stones that brought us to where we are. Let's then bury that aX and live the Christmas of giving, innocence, love, joy, peace, hope, and magic that was...
once upon a Christmas.
Your friend,
Bobbi
