Monday, December 07, 2009

Overprepared

I'm pretty agoraphobic. I don't know if this is an actual "clinical" problem, or if it has more to do with having to drag my children through pushy, loud, smelly, crazy crowds. I'm thinking it's more of the latter (though I do have some pretty neurotic issues with people "breathing my air"). And as much as I love store windows at Christmas, and Christmas lights and music, I hate the marked-up prices and insanity of the rest of it.

So, this year I decided in order to keep Christmas a little more sane, I'll I'd have to do was do all of my Christmas shopping online. I ordered mostly from Amazon because they have superdeals once in a while and free shipping. And it worked out marvelously, I might add.

But then, I started getting the stuff--GINORMOUS boxes with one small item in them (we'll be saving some of the boxes to send stuff to Alturas in). At least there have been no styrofoam peanuts.

And then there was the scary-dark-wrapping-cloud hanging out over my head that wouldn't go away. So yesterday I wrapped like a woman possessed and now I am mostly done with it.

But then I realized... I have two weeks! Two weeks to keep the kids from UN-wrapping the presents and the cat from destroying the tree and to keep Greg from accidentally finding out what he's getting via email.

I'm realizing that I kind of probably had it a bit backwards... that instead of rushing to get the shopping done, I should have been rushing to celebrate Jesus's birth. We haven't really talked about Him being the reason why we do Christmas at all with our kiddos and we really should be doing more of that.

So tonight, I resolve to sit down with the kids and read the Christmas story--to open the advent calendar doors we've missed (all of them) and to try to have a better attitude about it all.

When I was a child, I had the faith of a child. But now I guess I have to be a little more intentional about it. And it's not just for my own spirit's sake, but for my Childrens' too.

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