It is almost Christmas! Elvis is singing on the record player. There is a fire in the fireplace beneath the stockings. Tiny white lights are twinkling on the mantel and the tree. Yes, it is almost Christmas and I haven’t made my list yet.
Seems we use to say “well it’s f-i-n-a-l-l-y Christmas” and we’d drag that word finally out more and more each day. Now it’s like “wow, I can’t believe it’s Christmas already.”
What has changed so much in our lives to make time move so quickly? If it is the hustle and bustle, hectic life we are living I fear that it is sucking the spirit out of the holiday.
I want to change it back.
I want to go back to the Christmas seasons of my youth. The ones where we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for the big day to arrive.
I want to ride around and look at decorations. I want to sit back and watch the twinkle of our own tree and sip a thick, rich glass of eggnog.
I want to leisurely shop around for the perfect gift for friends and loved ones. Not the best buy — the best gift.
I want to sit on the floor across from my wife and wrap those presents and talk about what a good job we did finding them. I would also like to be able to get back up off the floor without grunting, and moaning, and grabbing hold of something to pull up with.
I want to go back to the days when the front doorbell would ring every night of the week before Christmas and Santa or Mrs. Claus would have left a little gift for the little girl upstairs. I want to see her again bouncing down those stairs as her out-of-breath father pops through the back door just as she opens the front one to gather up the bounty. Actually that still happens but there isn’t anyone upstairs, but maybe my wife, and she doesn’t bounce down the stairs anymore either. It’s just not the same.
I want to see that little girl’s beautiful eyes go wide with excitement when the jingle bells jingle out back, or out front, or wherever Santa might be parking his sleigh.
I want to once again see that big footprint of ash on the hearth that looked ever so much like baby powder to me. Santa had eaten those cookies though, so ash it must have been.
I want to take my daughter shopping for her mother and buy her a grand lunch of chicken fingers and fries after she picks out the things she wants mom to find under the tree. We’ve not done that in years and I don’t know why we ever stopped. No time, I suppose.
I want to listen to that Elvis’ Christmas Album from beginning to end without the phone ever ringing one time.
I want the reindeer to eat all that Reindeer Trash off the front stoop and I want some Christmas carolers to come knocking on my door.
I want the whole family (all three of us) to watch a Christmas movie together, with the dogs in our laps, and laugh out loud in spite of ourselves.
I want it to snow so we can build a big snowman and crash big snowballs over each other’s heads. I want some snow ice cream, too.
I want to hear Christmas music blaring out from the front porch as the three of us head out on a mission delivering homemade cookies and candies to our friends, or secretly placing some gaudy decoration on a neighbor’s front porch. Or even decorating that perfect little cedar tree on the side of the road for passers-by to see and wonder how, or maybe why?
That’s my Christmas list. Or, part of it anyway. I know it sounds selfish. It is. It has an awful lot of “I wants” on it, but that’s okay. Heck it is almost Christmas — actually it is Christmas.
So, Santa, here’s my list. Get busy. Make it happen! If you do, I’ll leave you something good to eat on the hearth come Christmas Eve.
