Tis The Season..

I know this is going to sound cliche, but Christmas is definitely my favorite time of year. At this very moment I'm sitting in the living room next to the Christmas tree (which actually looks good for once unlike the Charlie Brown tree we had last year) and soaking up the delicious smells that only real Christmas trees can make. My mom is in the kitchen cooking gingerbread men and cussing them because their arms or legs or heads keep falling off and I'm the lucky one who gets to eat the ones that look more like sumo wrestlers or lumpy snowballs. 

So here I sit. Eating deformed gingerbread cookies while Becky is doing Tae Bo and trying to make me feel guilty because I chose to eat cookies instead of workout. I still think I chose the better way. But as I'm sitting here I can't help but think of my favorite Christmas memories.

Before I left Pocatello for my LONG holiday break my visiting teachers came and gave my roommate and I a Christmas lesson. When they were done they asked us if we had any favorite Christmas stories we wanted to share. My mom tells us the story of the Buttercup Christmas every Christmas Eve so I decided I would tell that story. But when I started to tell it I realized I don't have a clue how it goes! All I know is that there is a cow named Buttercup in it and two little boys. And that it's a true story from someone that used to live in Dayton when my mom was a little girl. 

So obviously I'm bad at paying attention, because I should really be able to tell that story by now, but my favorite stories aren't the ones that other people tell. My favorite stories are the ones from my own life. I remember one year my parents had NO money because my sister Emmalee was getting a major surgery two days after Christmas and it was going to cost a lot of money. My mom had already told me that there wouldn't be much money for any Christmas presents, and sadly I have to admit that I had a bad attitude about it. 

On Christmas morning I slept in longer than I ever had on Christmas, because if there weren't going to be any presents I wasn't going to get excited about anything. Then my sisters came and woke me up and we went down stairs and there were PRESENTS there! I was so surprised because my mom had specifically told me there wouldn't be any money for that sort of thing this year. But without really thinking twice about it I opened my presents and thanked my parents.

Later that day though, I got the best present of all. I was helping my mom with dinner and I mentioned something about how surprised I had been to see all of the presents that morning. She then got a serious look on her face and told me that she hadn't bought the presents. My sister had felt guilty that we weren't going to have any Christmas presents because of her surgery, so she had bought most of my presents. She didn't want me to know, but she taught me an important lesson that year.

We've never had a lot of money to spend on presents in my family. In fact most of my friends usually end up with at least one present out of the many they received that year that costs more than all of my presents combined. But that year I learned that presents aren't what matter on Christmas. The important thing is that I get to be with people that love me on the most special day of the year.  Emmalee didn't just give me presents that year, she gave me the gift of love-and you can't put a price on that.

One of my favorite Christmas stories is How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. After the Grinch has stolen all of the Whos presents and happy little Christmas things and is about to throw them off a cliff, he hears the Whos singing! The nerve of the Whos to sing when they don't have any presents!

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

Christmas isn't about what we get. Christmas is about what we give. It's about the love that we share and the acts of service that are selflessly given. It's about the spirit that comes to all of us when for one day out of the year we spend more time thinking about others than ourselves. It's about the memories we make.  And the best presents I've ever received didn't come from a store. So Merry Christmas to everyone, and may we all remember what the Grinch learned on that Christmas morning in Whoville. "What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, MEANS A LITTLE BIT MORE." MERRY CHRISTMAS!