I'M IN------THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT AT LAST

A good Winter snow storm did the trick
And below ten degree weather.
Created excitement, surprise cancellations
Rocked the daily rhythms
Spontaneity began to rule

Went to a Christmas concert where my daughter sang as lead vocalist and also wrote the script for the story line of the music. It was an homage (hate that word but that's what it was) to fifties like Christmas songs. My daughter sang a version of Silent Night that brought the raucous thousand or more person audience to silence. It stunned. Didn't quite fit the rest of the music but so stood out and offered a moment of a holy night and the crowd cheered.


How else do I know I'm in the spirit?
—I've lost presents I bought in the Summer
—I have no idea of what I've spent and don't care
—I am cringing about some presents already sent that I know are wrong
   (Never order after midnight)
—I am thinking of the best ever presents to compensate for the wrong ones I sent  
   and will probably order them today
—Christmas tree is up. Tree panic is over. (I always think there will be no trees 
   left and that mine is flawed. And then i think it is the best I've ever had. This
   rhythm is predictable and made fun of by everyone)
—I am perusing cookbooks to add something new to traditional food
—I am tender remembering my childhood Christmases and missing and loving
   my mom and dad and brother. 
—I have hung my childhood stocking on the fireplace mantle and those of my
    grown kids and grand kids. Seventeen in all. And worry about whether it is a
    fire hazard and shrug.
—I am happy. Excited. Doing unexpected giving is the best joy maker of all

I will not decry Christmas and the frenzy and the commercialism. There is a bubbling up of the energy of giving and abundance and pleasure and joy
and the sacred holds it own. One doesn't have to cancel out the other. Holiday rituals hold us together when the world is tugging us toward separateness. Tug back

(I share a very different Christmas Eve experience at http:\\iprayanyway.blogspot.com)