Done

I am so done with Christmas. I am so done with what it has become . Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it as far as my kids were concerned. Watching Ella open her presents was fun. But something was missing. Watching Ella I realized that she thinks this is what it’s about. She is too young to know the meaning of Christmas. She is too young to have been corrupted by the ad agencies. NOW is the perfect time for a change. Something has been missing and it gets more lost every year. While I am not the most religious man, I understand why we are supposed to celebrate Christmas. Whether you are religious or not, Christmas should be about family. It should be about enjoying what you sometimes take for granted. It shouldn’t be about who buys what or how much you spend. It should be about sitting back, looking at your family, taking a deep breath, and smiling….for at least once a year. It shouldn’t be about Wal-mart, or Best Buy, or Target. It should be about the fact that you have a short time on this Earth and you should take advantage of any moment given to you to connect with your family. At least, it should be.

Staci and I used to love Christmas. We both used to love what it was about. Now, it’s nothing but stress. Stress about all of the above reasons. Stress about other things that I won’t talk about here. Stress about HAVING to wipe out bank accounts because that is what’s expected. It really isn’t enjoyable anymore. Starting next year, that is going to change.

We have talked about it and we are done with it. We are done with the hype. We are done with what it has turned into. Beginning next year we will be gone. We have decided that every year at Christmas we will take our family and go somewhere. We will go somewhere beautiful to enjoy the day, to reconnect, to watch the sunrise on Christmas Day. We will take one gift for each girl to open on a faraway beach or a faraway mountain. We will watch the sunrise, we will laugh and we will talk. We’ll talk about nothing. We’ll talk about something. We won’t be chained to the retailers. We won’t follow all of the “Christmas Rules” set by the advertisers. Next year things are going to be different. We have included the girls in this decision and they are excited about it. We have assured them that when we return, we will still have “Christmas” with the grandparents. They still want their stuff, and I want them to have it,

Like I said, I enjoy watching them open their presents but there has to be something more. In a perfect world, ten years from now I will have a collage, from all over, of sunrises that we have watched on Christmas day together. A collage that I can give the girls as they head off to college to remind them of what Christmas meant to us.

Things have already been set in motion to make sure this happens. I shouldn’t be glad that Christmas is over but I am. I am so done.

Done.