Sunday, December 28, 2008

Merry (Belated) Christmas

Yes, I realize I've been bad about posting lately. The holidays are such a busy time, I'm sure all three of you who read my blog can forgive me.

Here's a repost from Facebook, and I promise not to use this crutch very often...but it's something I would have shared here anyways. Enjoy!

I am finally, officially, a fan of Christmas.

For many years, I hated the holiday, or at least I said I did. I had one very traumatic Christmas when I was 20 that turned my world upside down, and it happened to be the first I’d ever spent in Los Angeles away from my family. I would never spend another Christmas in Indiana again.

I won't say this hardened my heart against the holiday, but it came to be a time of year that I dreaded. It brought up painful memories and jumbled emotions that I preferred to avoid. However, they say that time heals all wounds, and eventually I realized that the sorrow and misery I once felt when December rolled around had evaporated.

Each year, I found friends, and at one point, even a family that was like my own, with whom to spend the holidays. I began buying Christmas gifts for my family during my annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage home, a tradition that still brings me as much joy as it does my numerous nieces and nephews. I started decorating my home and humming Christmas carols. After many years of saying - and believing - that I hated Christmas, I fell in love with the holiday once again.

There are still things that mute my experience of Christmas - the anniversary of the death of someone I loved dearly in early December; the powerful sense of longing for my family that I feel after spending time together at Thanksgiving; the knowledge that I lost something important on that Christmas more than a decade ago, something that I can never regain.

But I also feel a sense of renewal, of faith, of love, of joy. At last, after so many years of feeling sad and alone in December, I can finally see the Christ in Christmas.

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