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I want the Christmas holidays to be enjoyed. It’s that simple. In fact, we should make
it simple; we can derive joy from being with others, sharing conversation and maybe a
meal, and spending more time together as a family and with friends. Some will want to go
to church to cherish the day Christ was born. Most want to awaken on Christmas morning
exchange gifts with smiles, laughter, delight, and tears of joy and well-being. We
should do that, but keep it simple. It was that way during my childhood and before.
But, things changed.
I’ve spent most of my adult Christmas’s doing detailed planning on who will get what,
running from store to store trying to find the right what, toiling with wrapping paper &
ribbon, getting to the post office weeks ahead, checking the list to make sure every
remote person is accounted for, and generally being focused on “the task called
gift-buying”. I used to like this shopping, and I used to derive joy from watching
people open the presents I bought for them. After doing that for more than 30 years, I
find myself “feeling tasked instead of deriving joy”. I think it was the movement from
having the simple Christmas’s with just a few gifts and lots of family time, to going
totally overboard with “gift-gifting”. It is just too much stress in the gift-finding
for the diminishing joy I see on the faces of the gift-getters, who open gift after gift
after gift. I think we have just gone gift-nuts! I no longer care for it. I want to
slow down and relax.
I want to just enjoy the holidays for the extra time I have to be with friends, to be
with family, to attend some of the Christmas festivities that occur daily, to just be
joyful. I’m not being Scrooge, nor non-caring, In fact, I’m not saying “don’t go out and
shop”….I think you should have fun Christmas shopping, but not have the stress of “having
to out-do all your previous Christmas shopping”. I only want to enjoy the simple
pleasure of being with others…..to laugh, to talk, to relax, to have fun. I’m going to
keep it simple. A little shopping, yeah, and a simply, fun holiday season enjoyed.
© By Joe Zullo, Huntsville, Alabama
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