I love the Holidays.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s the extra time to spend with
family. Yet, have you ever noticed that
so many people are extra moody during this time of year? I find it with myself too.
We build up expectations for parties, time spent with
relatives, presents given and received.
More often than not the actual outcome is short of our
expectations. The exception is the good
food or should I say GREAT food that causes us to gain five pounds just looking
at it.
My challenge is managing the expectations so that I can
enjoy the season and not become depressed because of falling short of my
expectations. For instance, the
expectation when you find the perfect gift for someone. You just KNOW that they are going to LOVE
it. (The expectation.) Tempering the expectation would mean saying
to myself, “I know that with the chaos of the day I probably won’t see the
excitement that I would if the gift were given at any other time.”
When my mother was alive, I always received actual gifts
from my parents. In fact, my mother and
I would go shopping together and I would help buy the gifts that my siblings
and I received. I always had to “act
surprised.” Being the only single child
with no children of my own, there were always “Christmas Eve” gifts that my
mother bought for me. (Yeah, I was
usually with her when she bought those too.)
It was never an “even” situation.
Much more was spent on siblings’ families than on the single
daughter. But that is life, isn’t it? My expectation has changed from expecting to
receive a gift to expecting to receive a check.
In a demented sort of way, nothing has changed……I’m still choosing out
the gift myself. I try to always get a
photo of what I buy and send a copy to dad with a note like, “Thank-you. This is
what you bought me for Christmas.”
The most difficult challenge of all because of the
commercialism is remembering that “JESUS is the reason for the season.” The other way of saying it is “Don’t forget
the Christ in Christmas!” When we keep
that focus the rest of the expectations are put into perspective.
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