So This is Christmas

As we are only four days from Christmas, I find that I will need to share some truths about Christmas.  Forgive the bulleted format, but we are only four days until Christmas and things must get done!

1.  If you don't send Christmas cards for years, you will receive fewer and fewer as the years go by.  I get it; I am not stamp-worthy and I can appreciate that.  But it is really boring to just get bills, ads, and neighborhood circulars in December.

2.  You will end up doing many things out of a sense of obligation rather than want.  It might be traveling, purchasing, baking, or wrapping.  Know this, embrace it, and don't bemoan it.  Just fall into it and do it.  Maybe you just want a Christmas at home in comfy pants and cookie plates.  That is our Christmas every year and I used to be so sad that there weren't more people to share it with.  It took me a lot of years to get past wanting a house full of people being merry and bright to see how very nice my Christmas pajama pants and a never-ending cookie plate shared with just a few can also be nice.

3.  Do the traditions you started when kids are small.  I made an advent calendar one year when I tried to be crafty.  It's a pain in the butt.  The trees are too small, it is hard to put things under them, and they fall over all the time.  I didn't do it the last few years and when the 17-year-old asked could we please, please do it this year, I hesitated.  The trees fall over, there's not enough room underneath them, and I am busy.  But, I did it.  And every day, they take turns seeing who gets what under the tree while the other watches and then laughs when that person gets a holiday Chapstick.  Let it be known that I put a holiday Chapstick in my major award box at school and that thing was a huge hit!

4.  You will be disappointed.  There is a lot of hype for Christmas starting when we are young and innocent and believe that a magic man and his reindeer bring everyone in the world gifts on the same night.  It is so hard to replicate that feeling of wonder and innocence when we are fighting people at Target for the last holiday Chapstick.

5.  People you love will disappoint you at Christmas.  People you don't know will disappoint you on Christmas.  They are just people and so are you and people are tired, or sad, or distracted, or didn't listen to your itemized gift list, or you get the really crappy gift in the white elephant exchange despite bringing a bottle of booze for yours.  All these things can and will happen.  Also, big deal.  You are an adult.  If you don't get what you want, go out the day after and get it.  Or stop and think if you really need it at all.

6.  Christmas brings out the best and worst in everyone.  I grew teary watching the news this morning where strangers paid off other stranger's layaway balances.  Sniff.  God bless us, every one!  I also wanted to throat punch an entire city when I ran errands the other day and almost got hit twice, shoved once, and largely ignored when needing help with an item.  Doesn't anyone work?  Why are all these people in the stores at 11am?  Bah humbug.

7.  If you are traveling, you will be delayed.  You will encounter rain, snow, ice, and things you cannot control. But, in the end, you will be in a house of merry and bright and your kids will be with cousins and you will hug people you might not get to hug again, and that makes the drive, the flight, the whatever along the way worth it.

8.  Finally, Christmas sometimes is just a day.  This year it is on a Tuesday.  Your Christmas might feel more like a Tuesday than a Christmas.  Some Christmases are like that.  It doesn't mean your heart won't grow three sizes next Friday though; warm Christmassy joy can happen year-round if you let it.

I hope it is not Scrooge-like to share these realistic truths about Christmas.  I love a lot of things about Christmas and could wax on about those, but I really think we should all face the truth about a day that is both very magical and very normal.  In our house, Bill will be home for ten days!  Magical!  The kids and I will also be here.  Normal.  Presents will be under a tree!  Magical.  Dog hair will be under furniture.  Normal.  We will laugh and play games and laugh some more.  Magical!  We will get on each other's nerves and no one will watch the movie they really want to watch. Normal.  Cookies for breakfast!  Normal.  Crunchy-fudge sandwiches for breakfast! Magical!  

May your own Christmas be both magical and normal and may you find enough warmth in your heart to let someone in during rush-hour traffic or ignore a slight, or simply be transported to childhood by some amazing smell coming from your kitchen.  For me, as soon as the melted peanut butter hits those Rice Krispies, and I smell my childhood in that bowl and watch as the kids take deep breaths and smell their childhood too, I'll know this is Christmas.  

Oh, yes.

Positively Ridiculous

This year, I set an intention before school started to try to be positive.  If you know me, this is going hard against the story of my life.  While I would never categorize myself a pessimist, I am, for sure, a hard-core realist.  So I am giving positivity a try and while I find I have to force myself into it and be very mindful about choosing it, I think I am doing a decent job of not being mired down in the negative or the sheer exhaustion that comes from life.  However, sometimes the ridiculousness that comes from choosing to work surrounded by teenagers really makes one exclaim all day long “This job is ridiculous!” and not in a positive way.

This was easily said as I frog-marched children who were doing state-mandated testing to lunch one day this week.  These are the poor kids who failed the test last year and are retaking it again and again and again.  There were about three adults and ten kids and we were marching along to make sure that the kids wouldn’t be talking about the test.  To ensure this, we were told that they were not allowed to talk at all.  Kids who had been trapped in a room for three hours taking a test that they probably wouldn’t pass this time either could not relax for twenty minutes and talk.  Ridiculous, right? 

Yesterday, the doorknob on my classroom door seemed loose.  I was nervous all day that it would break off and I would be trapped in a roomful of kids.  “Careful with the door,” I said every single time someone entered or exited the room.  Ridiculous.  The knob fell off today and a coworker and I taped up the locking mechanism and now it reminds me of a swinging Western door in a saloon as you just push on it to open it and I keep hearing “Howdy Pardner” as it opens.  Also ridiculous.  However, I don’t even have to try to be positive about this because I am!  It didn’t break off trapping me and a roomful of kids.  Hooray!  A ridiculous win!

Purple tape to match my room, naturally.

Also ridiculous that a student came back from the restroom with a Magnum condom and dropped it, purposely, on the floor next to another student.  Ridiculous that I had to say the words “Pick up that condom and throw it out.”  Even more ridiculous that I had to repeat that more than once and then explain that I had nothing against condoms, but I wasn’t picking it up and the cleaning lady wouldn’t be picking it up either.  So much condom talk ensued I then found myself saying “Stop talking about condoms.”  And a seventeen-year-old kid with a Magnum condom?  Whatever.  Ridiculous.

My last ridiculous thing for the day is the note I wrote in my grade book about a student’s assignment.  This student does very little work and doesn’t often show to the class, so while I had him here today I told him to write the letter he owed me.  Know that I am a kind and benevolent grader and will often take whatever kids turn in and make it work.  This was supposed to be a letter to his future spouse detailing what he wanted in a spouse, what he had to offer to this spouse, and how he envisions their life.  He wrote me Lil Uzi lyrics that start “Dear Mama”.  I knew they were lyrics because the entire thing rhymed and because I AM NOT DUMB!  I hate when they think I am dumb.  I entered a 0 for this assignment along with the note “submitted Lil Uzi lyrics for this assignment.”  Ridiculous!

This ridiculous day is competing hard against my wish to be positive. However, even as I type that, I am focusing on the positive:  I am positive there will be more ridiculousness tomorrow, I am positive I will still not have a doorknob and I am positive that a pair of pajama pants and a glass of wine never looked so good.