i love you, christmas. but i kinda hate you, too.

It would be practically  unAmerican, maybe even unHuman to say I hate Christmas, right? I don't. Really. I promise. It's just that when you're trying to balance five jobs, and grade final papers, and organize the application processes with various essays to write for 6 different MFA programs--well, Christmas is like one more giant thing stuck on your plate---a wonderful thing like a head-size slab of cake, but still, you didn't  have room for it.

Decorating was the main thing that seemed overwhelming. Even though this is my third Christmas being single, I've had a male figure of some kind to help me with the tree assembling and house lighting the previous two years. This year, I knew there were some guys I could call on for  help, but I really wanted to do it myself. I'm feeling fiercely independent that way as of late.

**Fiercely independent=Stuff takes a while to get done.**

So, I finally haul in all the dusty Rubbermaid totes from the garage on Thursday night and drop them in the family room. And they sit there.

Friday, I opened them up and started to sort out what I for sure wanted to put out and what I could skip this year for the sake of ease and speed. And there were the Spiegel candlestick holders Brad bought me our first Christmas together. And the tin container full of the clay ornaments my mom made with the boys her last Christmas with us. And the reindeer fashioned out of paper hand prints I made with Z and E when I was still homeschooling. All those reminders of what I'd lost brought me to un-Christmas-y tears. So I put the lids back on the boxes and I cut out some paper snowflakes for the front window. That was all my heart could take on Friday.

Saturday, the previous day's pain was softened by the sheer joy my L and J exhibited in the simple act of me re-arranging furniture so the tree could fit in the big front window. It was as if the couch were some *magical play place* now that it faced the opposite direction. And Z grinned from ear to ear when I told him that he could back the van out of the garage so I could get up to the attic.Every 14 year old wants to drive. Even a van... in reverse... for 30 feet :) The tree got drug down from the attic and sat next to the pile of Rubbermaid totes.  And it sat there. This was still progress...

Sunday, the boy squad and I started  up the Jazz Holidays station on Pandora and figured out how to assemble the tree. It was another one of those things that seemed harder to do than it actually was.  We got it done in less than an hour. I put out some more decorations. We even got their smaller tree put up in the family room and all trimmed. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

That night after the boy squad was in bed, it was time to get started hanging ornaments on the big tree. I plugged in the strand of lights...only to find half of them didn't work. I fiddled with moving and replacing bulbs, breaking two of them, then muttered under my breath as I wrapped them around the tree, half-lit, jokingly telling God that if He wanted to perform a Christmas miracle, He could make my lights work. I got everything up at nearly 1 am, smiled that I had finished and our house finally had a little holiday cheer, then sat down at the computer to sort through my bulging inbox. And guess what?

As I was sitting there--the non-working lights...came on.
Not all of them, but about half of the half.

Yeah.

It was as if God was nodding his approval. And showing me He cares. Even about the little stuff.

So--here I am on December 15. I haven't watched a single Christmas movie, there are no lights on the outside of our house, we haven't decorated cookies, the advent calendar isn't hung, and I still have a lot of presents to buy. But, I'm ok. I'm happy. I trust I'll fit it all in, somehow. And my boys will have all the simple, sweet memories of Christmas they deserve.

 I trust in myself. Because even being "fiercely independent"... I have the best Helper I could ever have.