Bah! Humbug!

I'm going to be honest, every year I dislike the "Christmas season" more and more. To me Christmas has become brash and commercialized and even tacky. I feel as if the season is forced upon me and I don't like that. I don't like having to listen to Feliz Navidad everywhere I go BEFORE Thanksgiving and I don't understand why people feel the need to celebrate this holiday for four weeks by putting up decorations the minute the Thanksgiving turkey is cleared from the table.

I know why I feel like this. Christmas as an adult isn't the same as Christmas as a child. As an adult I have a small family and although I love my mom and sister more than anything else in the world, I miss my dad and the childhood Christmases spent with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. I do miss my extended family.

But I think somewhere our society has changed Christmas and it's all about excess. Christmas is one day but for some reason we have to celebrate it for at least four weeks? We don't do that with any other holiday. Thank goodness we don't have to endure four weeks of Valentine decorations everywhere we go. But with Christmas it just seems like there is too much, too much of everything and for me that isn't the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas has definitely changed since I was a kid. I used to love to watch those holiday TV shows like Santa Claus is Coming to Town and The Year Without a Santa Claus. But they used to be scheduled closer to Christmas. Did you know that they have already shown Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Yep, you missed it already. Also there was the time off school. That was the best. Now, as an adult, if you don't save some of your vacation time you end of up working, sometimes even on Christmas Eve. And I don't know about you but NOTHING happens at work the week between Christmas and New Years.

Here's what I love about Christmas. I love that I get to spend time with my family and friends. I love that I get time off work (my company gives us two days of holiday - I'll take whatever I can get). I love that maybe in some little way I can make a difference in the life of a person who may not be as blessed as I am. For Christians this is the time to celebrate the birth of our Savior. It's not about four weeks of lights, decorations, music or spending money leading up to Christmas. And it makes me sad because it feels like the meaning of Christmas has really, really changed.