i think i enjoy the lead-up to christmas so much more than christmas day. is that a bad thing? i'm not sure it's always been that way, but people were talking about their christmas plans today and i realised how much i love the shopping centre decorations and christmas cards and all the other pre-christmas stuff, but also how average and uneventful christmas day is. obviously, the cause for the celebration is by no means average or uneventful - i don't think you could ever put jesus christ's birthday in that category. and maybe that's the problem - maybe i don't get excited enough about that and that's why christmas often doesn't seem all that special. it's just that we've never really made a huge deal of it. that sounds so unspirited and even a bit un-christian, by some people's standards. but that's just how it is. it's usually just the four of us, but we've had friends over once or twice, and one year where we had this poor lady and her little son over. we should do that more often. and last year i think we had an aunt over...i honestly can't remember. what is with my memory?! anyway - christmas day - dad works, obviously. christmas day is a pretty important gig for him - he can either draw people back to church or drive them away for another year! and there's always the chance mum might have to work too. we go to church in the morning; and again i honestly cannot remember which church i went to last year. my sister was overseas. i probably went with my parents to their church. on christmas eve i went to my church while my parents were at their's, but my new church doesn't have a late night service on christmas eve so i don't know where i'll go. maybe with my parents. oh it would be so nice and so easy to go back to my old church where i know what goes on and i know everybody...but i can't do that. anyway - after church on christmas morning we go home for lunch, and laze around doing who knows what for the rest of the afternoon. it's all just a bit...boring really. it does not feel good saying that christmas is boring. i guess i'm always just expecting that everybody else is at these huge colourful family gatherings with little kids and dogs running around wildly and christmas crackers cracking and beer and chocolates and teared wrapping paper and swimming and whatever else, and then half the people pack up and move on to the next gathering for the other half of their family, and so on, and in the evening they might end up at the beach or somewhere else nice, or end up staying home playing tacky holiday games or watching a movie, and the whole day/evening is filled with laughter and goodwill and bubbly aunts and uncles and merry times for all. not sure where i get that picture from, and i'm not even saying that that would be an ideal christmas day. who knows. the thing is, we do have a family get-together, but it's always on boxing day instead. we're a day late! the annual boxing day gathering used to be quite fun when we were much younger; the cousins all used to (well, all 4 of us...there's 3 others but they either didn't come or were too cool) make up plays and perform them for the adults...oh it was fun. they were usually murder mysteries, and being a bit of an animal-freak i'm quite sure i used to always work out a way i could be a rabbit or a puppy or something. otherwise i was usually cast as the detective or the waitress or the fish&chip shop owner. but it was always fun. but now the cousins are either married, or living in outback queensland, or have little tuckers to look after, or in the army, or in the airforce, or just too busy, and if they turn up at all it's either for a very short time, or if they stay for a long time it's still hard because when you only see somebody once a year it's sometimes hard to keep conversation going, even if they're your own cousin. there's a substantial age gap too (i'm the baby), so while i'm all about music and holidays and what-the-heck-am-i-gonna-study, they're all about career and kids and how-the-heck-am-i-gonna-pay-the-mortgage. tragic, and maybe the wrong way of looking at it, but that's how it seems. i do have 2 aunts that are really funny. they're good fun. so don't get me wrong - they're all lovely people. but we really just don't know each other. and i think, perhaps strangely, we're all cool with that. maybe we shouldn't be. but it does take away from the whole christmas-family-joyous-sharing thing. maybe that doesn't even exist. who knows. our family is definitely among the less close-knit families. i mean i would love to spend christmas day with a whole heap of friends instead, but i'd always hesitate to ever attempt to do anything about it because that's when everybody else seems to have their family get-togethers. no - we could spend it with a whole heap of friends AND families. heyyy. it could just turn into this massive gigantic gathering and we'd all have a great time. but that wouldn't work, because everybody wants to spend christmas with different people, so my plan wouldn't fit with everybody else's plan, and christmas isn't about being selfish. sigh. as i said, the lead up to christmas is very exciting. i love seeing giant christmas trees and those sculptured department store reindeers, and i love decorating the house with whatever i can find and trying to make our sad polyester christmas tree look a bit more cheerful (maybe that's the problem - we need a real tree! that would make it all better), and i love wrapping presents once i finally decide what to buy, and i love making silly little christmas cards, and i love christmas eve services no matter how daggy or solemn they can be, and i love the fact that the reason it all happens it because of god's divine plan, and oh there are so many things i love about christmas. i love all the festivities of the days and weeks leading up to it, it's just ironic that the day itself is the least festive of them all.
"if i let you in...giving you the key to everything of me...then you can trash it or treasure it...and sometimes i'm afraid which it will be"
"if i let you in...giving you the key to everything of me...then you can trash it or treasure it...and sometimes i'm afraid which it will be"