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Friday, December 24, 2010

""And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."


Title: Luke 2:12

I'm sitting here in my PJs on a lazy Friday morning with a list full of things to do. I'm officially done with my semester and somehow managed to make Dean's List for my hardest semester in which my one adviser proceeded to tell me it would kill me and another encouraged me to drop a class because he didn't think I could handle it. (Take that Dr. L!)

Today is Christmas Eve already. Leading up to this day, I have been less than excited. I feel the older I get, the less exciting Christmas becomes. My friend says that holidays now are obligations. I could understand where he was coming from. I've been stressed about buying presents for everyone, having enough money to buy presents for everyone, fitting in everyone and seeing them during the holidays (word of advice: stay single, it makes things easier), making things for dinner, wrapping everything, getting cards out. It doesn't help that my mom not only works on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, she also upset every year because 12 years ago today we lost my grandmother to cancer (eff you cancer).

All these stressors from every day life plus our loss puts a damper on Christmas, ya know?

Last night my mom asked me to come upstairs and she showed me a video on youtube that she received through an email. I sat and watched it and it really had me thinking.



Then my mom sat there, crying and told me this video reminded her of me when I was younger. First off I never believed in Santa. It was something we never did, I always knew my presents came from my family. Now when I was that young, I use to go into work with my mom. Her supervisor, Gail, approached my mom one day about a conversation she had with me. Gail had asked me if I had written my letter to Santa Claus yet. I stood proud and looked her in the eye and told her that Christmas was not about Santa but about celebrating the birth of Jesus. Gail told my mom how I had made her think about the true meaning of Christmas and my mom was so proud of me.

I really needed to hear this story as my mind has only been focusing on the fact that things aren't done and there are no Christmas decorations and not enough money and so on. I lost my focus on what Christmas is REALLY about.

The birth of Christ, our Lord.

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you.
I hope you spend it with those you love celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.



5 comments:

Amanda said...

So true! Thanks for the reminder!

Merry Christmas Vanessa :)

Unknown said...

Beautiful post, Vanessa. Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones! :D

Lildonbro said...

Love this post. I can't see the video though because I am checking this at work (shh...) I mean, if there even is a video - cause it just shows a huge white space where I am assuming a video is...anyway, I was watching Charlie Brown Christmas with my nephew the other day and I hadn't seen that in so long. When the little boy goes center stage and says what Christmas is really all about, I was like, "You go little boy from Charlie Brown!"
And that is how I feel with your blog post. :)

Sareezfashions said...

realy nice article.. thanks for sharing..


Salwar Kameez

Mar said...

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, my dear :)

And please blog more, I miss your beautiful, well-written, inspiring posts!

Love,
Mar