At this point in the holiday season – the eve of Christmas Eve, everything comes into sharp focus. It – whatever it was – got done or it didn’t. You can plan ahead for next year and make promises that you will :
- put money aside into a Christmas 2011 fund,
- buy gifts all year round,
- try to convince those from whom you receive gifts to donate to a charity of your choosing rather than gift you, or abandon gifts altogether and just enjoy the fellowship of family and friends with a volunteer project you do together.
All of these plans are well and good except for one thing – this Christmas is the only one you have. It will be what you make it. It will feel how you feel it. 
If you are blessed enough to have young children whose lives you control, savor the fact that they are with you and don’t have other plans. There will come a time when your children’s lives may be lived in different cities and so you have to choose between one or the other or, in the unfortunate case of my two children, they are estranged and so having them be together is not currently an option. (Big sigh.)
If you are blessed enough to be able to be with your entire extended family be glad.
If somehow you have fallen short in the things you want to do, remember the fact that only the living can fall short and that you can aim to improve next time. There is no such thing as perfection except for a perfectly good celebration and observation of the day..
In a few days, all the decorations and festivities will be over until next year. The ornaments will get packed away, the holiday music will cease, the lights will be dimmed and the greetings from those people who only seem to offer greetings during the holiday season will stop.
But right now, it is all still in season. And I am enjoying it. I enjoyed the throngs of people as I completed my last minute shopping. I enjoyed watching another of the Christmas movies we watch each year. I look forward to whatever clashes my daughter and I will have as we cook the holiday meal. I pray for my husband’s safe arrival from Boston tomorrow.
I am blessed to be in the presence of my granddaughter and “play” grandson who are 3 and 5 respectively and so full of joy and acceptance and anticipation for Santa’s gifts. The children are the center of this holiday and these two will love whatever they get from Santa and his extended family of helpers.
I am going to enjoy this Christmas – pulled off once again for another year. I hope you enjoy your Christmas, too. It is the only one we have.