I was going to write this earlier in the week, but decided to wait and see if the world was going to end…that kind of thing could really hurt my hit count
We are now in the final run up to Christmas. I remember thinking that Thanksgiving was early, so we had lots of time before Christmas this year. There would be plenty of time to do everything and do it well. No rush, no cut corners, no regrets…
Four lovely Advent candles yet to be lit.
So what happened? Why am I running around like crazy to complete some semblance of an organized celebration? The doors of my Advent calendar have been ripped off their hinges as if hit by a time tornado. Three Advent candles are burning, and from the looks of Church decorations already, the fourth is just an afterthought to be lit and pushed to the side by the Christmas monster.
So my wish today is for one more week of Advent. That's all it would take, one more week. I could get everything done. How do we go about making this happen? Do I DM @pontifex with a request? Do we need to reshape the Advent wreath to accommodate an extra candle? Rewrite old songs
O come O come, Emmanuel!
Just one week later, that would be just swell.
Of course I know that this wouldn't solve things. Parkinson's law states that a task fills up the amount of time that we have to complete this task, and I know that a week from now I would be in the same position. The illusion that there is a perfect path to a perfect Christmas celebration is one of the most maddening holiday myths, right up there with Santa Claus and good-tasting egg nog. The Christmas story starts with the Holy Family arriving to Bethlehem unprepared and without a reservation (clearly no one took the time to go to hotels.com), and in this they provided a model for the many years to come.
In this yearly failure of will over time, there are larger lessons, because we never have enough time to make it perfect, to get it just right. Whether it be a lesson or a school program or a life itself, there is always a sense that more could have been done if we just had a little more time. We always arrive at Christmas or anything with no reservations for the inn.
So my real wish for today is that I learn to accept incompletion and imperfection in my holiday celebration and in my life.
As always, I welcome your comments.
Image: 'Candelabra' http://www.flickr.com/photos/27550543@N02/3192361637 Found on flickrcc.net
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We now live three doors down and across the street from the readiest people on earth, and we don’t even have a tree, and we can’t move in yet because the painters have to finish the walls tomorrow. Ah well– at least we no longer have a newly scraped ceiling that smells like wet plaster. Very low standards this year! 🙂
“the Christmas monster.” I am so stealing this for the rest of my life.