I looked in the closet. I looked under the bed. I searched the cupboards, the drawers, and the shelves.
I lifted the couch cushions and while I found a few coins, a drill bit and a popcorn kernel, it wasn’t there.
My Christmas spirit was missing. Time was not on my side.
I realize this will offend a few, but it’s the truth so I’ll own it: I do not love the chaos of Christmas. Before you spit out your candy cane-decorated mocha latte, let me explain. I love the story of Christmas. I love the nostalgia of traditions. I love the merriment this season evokes and the generosity it inspires.
I love that it gives us a pause.
But somewhere along the way, Christmas has snowballed into an expectation where I’m to have this miraculous budget of savings set aside to buy gifts for my loved ones, and even a few only-liked ones (if even), and also find time to shop in my work week, which I take on more of to pay for said gifts.
How do you tell your loved ones you don’t want to go into debt to express your love for them?
On top of all this, I’m to maintain a clean house, while finding time to decorate it top to bottom, inside and out. Oh, and make time to watch a Christmas movie, because if you don’t do that, it’s like you’re not even worthy of being on Santa’s list.
I cannot be the only person who feels the dread before finding the merriment in it all, but we don’t talk about that.
I realize I’m fortunate. There will be gifts. There will be a holiday meal with leftovers for days. There is a roof over our heads. We will laugh. There will be time to watch a Christmas movie. Enough will be enough. I’m blessed. I know.
Many of my friends have lost someone they love this year. There will be moments of sadness, hopefully lessened with shared memories of Christmases past and the laughter these stories will bring. I wish I could wrap them up in the love I am sending them.
All these thoughts were swirling in my head like a snow globe. I knew I had to get my holiday mojo in gear, though I wasn’t feeling inspired. I hadn’t even made my gift list yet, and you know I love a tick-box list. Off to browse, maybe buy.
And there it was, sitting at the end of a toy display: a Hot Wheels garage with a track ramp that twists through three levels, with five Hot Wheel cars included. Awesome. I love cars. I’d love this toy. I imagined the joy of a child getting those hot rods, making car noises as those metal cars flew down the yellow plastic tracking. Vroom.
I had to buy it, because that child was out there, somewhere. One day, on my lunch break, I drove over to the hardware store, the site of my friend’s Jolley Toy Drive, and I placed the toy under the tree.
Guess what I found there, under that hardware store tree? My Christmas spirit. I stopped thinking about what I needed to do, and I just did that thing that filled my heart, that just might fill someone else’s.
When you have it all, share.
Give. Receive.
That’s the spirit.
