Merry Christmas, Baby

It's 11:30 on Christmas Eve and I don't feel inspired to write anything particularly memorable -- I'm still jet lagged today, and am trying to shake off the 2:00am fog as I get myself wound down and ready for bed. I will say that I don't know what I was expecting from Christmas this year, and therefore am totally unsure of whether or not I'll be satisfied or disappointed. I don't know even if it would be fair to be disappointed with Christmas. Perhaps my ideal - Carols and ice skating and big family gatherings and cookie baking, belongs to someone else's life. My reality, today, consisted of going over to Karen's apartment a few floors above us (my mom's best friend), having a glass of champagne and relaxing with them as they exchanged gifts. Tomorrow, my brother and his girlfriend are coming over in the afternoon and we're going to exchange gifts and have a nice dinner together. At some point, I'll make my way over to Victoria to see my dad and my sisters, who are having Christmas together tomorrow morning.

Maybe I still feel the sting of being a divorced kid. Holidays are always a touchy time of year; no matter which parent you spend Christmas with, you know the other one is spending it by themselves, and you feel sad for them. Wherever you are, you feel like you're not entirely at home. Even now, at 22, I'm getting guilt trips from my grandparents for not spending Christmas day with my dad. So part of me glorifies the traditional 2 parents, 2 kids, big tree, stuffed stockings type of Christmas. When I hear about my friends having wonderful celebrations, I feel sad for myself. And that's not what Christmas is all about.

For tomorrow, I only wish that everyone I love, whether I can be with them or not, find peace and happiness for themselves. I wish to be happy where I am. I wish to let go of all of my guilt. I hope for the maturity to understand that even though my family doesn't have money for gifts (even though we all buy one for each other so that no one goes without), that we love each other and are good to each other on a very special day.

My mom just peeked into the room and said, "I wish that I had money so that I could buy you and Regan and everyone I loved things that I saw and wanted them to have". And I told her that there's an infinite number of 'things' out there - like, there's no limit to the material excess that we can indulge in. Sure, there's a lot of things out there that I would love to own, but in the end, 'things' can't make my life better. What's more important to me is the act of giving; the idea that someone has put thought and effort and time into selecting a gift. With this, the gift becomes inconsequential to the giving itself. The key then, when you're in a situation of relative poverty, is to find a way to give thought and effort and time, without adding more 'things' to our life. I don't have the answer, really. But it's more important to give of ourselves, to be open with eachother, to be compassionate and loving and trusting, than to give anything from a store. There may not be much under the tree for me this Christmas, but I have more to give and have received more from my mom and brother than any one of my wealthier friends. I hope that everyone I know can be so lucky.

Merry, merry Christmas, blog world.