Sunday, December 24, 2006

Happy Christmas!

It doesn't feel like Christmas this year. My husband says, for him, it's the weather. It's been up in the 70s lately, though it's a little cooler this Christmas Eve Morning, and overcast. "Looks like snow," Tim would say.

I think I've just been too busy to think about it. Spending time with my dad, who has cancer. Taking the cats to the vet. Working. Applying for jobs. Entering sweepstakes. There's not enough time in the day to do everything I need to do, or feel I have to do, or want to do, and then feel excited on top of it. I have some presents for my parents and for Tim, but I don't feel like any of them are really great gifts.

The whole feeling of Christmas is different everywhere. I was in a store the other day and heard "Silver Bells" on the Muzak. "In the air there's a feeling of Christmas. Children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile...." That's how the song goes, but the people I pass generally aren't smiling. They're talking on their cell phones and rushing around, not paying attention to anything else around them.

I think it's more than just commercialism. The world is so fast-paced now. Communication is easier but personal connections really aren't. It's easy to say that we need to simplify Christmas (there's a whole book about it), but you'd have to be really committed -- and not at all competitive -- to do it. It's hard to buy great gifts that people aren't expecting because most of us just buy what we want when we want it.

Maybe it's just me.

Is it different for you? Do you feel Christmas in the air?