A Christmas Wish

Like most yuppies, my husband and I have a busy holiday season.

There are parties to attend and to host, gifts to purchase and wrap, food to make and chocolate confection to create.  Some things, well intentioned, always seem to fall by the wayside – like sending out Christmas cards.  Every year I intend to do it, and every year it somehow falls behind.  I open all the beautiful ones I receive with a mixed emotion of guilt and happiness to be remembered by so many.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of thinking: “Ugh, I’m so busy.  I’m so stressed.  I wish I could just sit and relax and have nothing to do!”

My husband says this to me almost every weekend as we run through our weekly regimen of home maintenance, family errands and social activities.

Me, I always think about the people who genuinely have nothing to do.  Not on the weekends, and not at Christmastime either.  Think about the reality of waking and having this day, and every day stretch before you without a job expecting you, or friends asking for your time, or family inviting you to dinner.

I’ve made choices and I do not regret them but I’m realistic about where they will lead.  I’m married to a man who is fifteen years older than me, I am blessed with one child through my marriage but opted not to give birth to any.  I’ve always said that however many years of spectacular I have with Ted is worth more than a longer span with any other man closer to my age.  He is my soul mate, and I’m filled with gratitude for every moment we have together on this world.

However, I know how likely it is that if I live as long as my grandmothers did, the end of my life is probably going to be lonely.

When that time comes I will have treasured up years upon years filled to the brim with friends and family and a holiday schedule so busy that I barely had time to sleep.  I run around during the holidays and know that this year there are people for whom Christmas Eve is any other Eve, and Christmas Day any other Day – because what makes a holiday but the people with whom we share it?

I’m so grateful for my stressful, busy holiday and however many of them stretch ahead of me as the years of our life together fly by.  I am warm in the knowledge that right now is the time of my life that I will look back on one day with such joy.  I won’t remember being tired on my feet while standing over a pot of melted chocolate – I’ll remember how happy someone made me when they tasted the results and dubbed it: “magnificent”.

My wish for you this season is for your life to be busy and full, abundant with the people who will make it special for you, and for whom you made it so special.

Merry Christmas, and God Bless!