Are you excited?

Tonight at Christmas Eve Service, surrounded in candlelight and soft piano music, a local minister screamed ARE YOU EXCITED?!? at obnoxious levels from the front. He took us all back to a Christmas where we felt such anticipation for Christmas morning we could barely take it. This was a place I definitely did not want to go. But it's hard, because that was every Christmas until I was about 11.

My parents did Christmas well, oh man. Part of it may have been because I was so impressionable (and still am). Mostly it was just so storybook, from the trips to grandparents', to the decorations, to the building up of energy from when I first woke then up until we got downstairs. And the tree was always so beautiful on Christmas morning. I'm not sure I ever made a formal Christmas list, but the moment I saw the tree and what Santa had brought I knew everything that was there was even better than what I had thought of asking for.

Talking with a friend from work last week, she admitted that she had cried the last several Christmases just because things were so different. I felt relieved that I wasn't the only one. Things are far from bad. My family is great! It's just different because it has to be. Grandma and Grandpa aren't around anymore. Different people decorate differently. Dad wakes me up now to open gifts. Tonight I had to wait until my parents went to bed to set out a gift and fill their stockings. Talk about role reversal! I couldn't help but think, this would be a lot more fun if they were my kids, not my parents.

The commercialism and media distortion of Christmas nowadays has affected me as a single person. Christmas is the time I tend to feel most alone. As friends you have your small little gift exchange over lunch, and then everyone goes home to their families. Families then have their celebrations. I just haven't found my niche in the family yet. And while everyone else clings to their significant other, I sit and smile with a cup of Christmas cheer and remember back to when I fit in, not really with this family, though. It hurts, but there are enough good memories. The good memories are the ones that I realized tonight I need to focus on to rise above the surface level of the Christmas season.

Jesus was God's gift to us at the first Christmas, whenever that was. I have had so many blessings this year from God, and this Christmas I choose to celebrate those. I've already cried twice today, but I choose to not let these feelings pull me down from the joyous times with my family, as changed as it may be. It's a family, and I'm lucky to have one.