Christmas: All About the Money?

I love Christmas.  It's by far my favorite holiday of the year.  I love the lights, the Christmas Trees, the Christmas hymns, Christmas performance, opening presents, getting presents, talking about Jesus, getting sick from gingerbread houses, and being around the family.

But this time in my mid-life years, I'm experiencing something else: Christmas fatigue.  Maybe it's from studying and doing NaNoWriMo mixed with crazy pressures from work.  Or maybe it's just looking back over the past few years, realizing that December is a month where I know I'm going to be staying up late researching Christmas presents and pulling everything together.  Then I wonder when I'm going to get any rest.

And then I realize the center of my fatigue.  It's the whole idea of having to buy presents.  That's really what Christmas has become.  It's a major boon for the retail industry.  In fact, without Christmas, we would all experience a major economic disaster.  It's become so intertwined with our economy.  It doesn't depend on your religion.  Even most atheists participate in the gift-giving.

In fact sometimes, if you don't give a Christmas present, it's bad.  You don't care for that person, or you're exhibiting ingratitude.  On the other hand, if we all gave everyone we knew presents, we'd all go broke!

It's a big conspiracy!  (But it keeps our economy going.  Heh!)

Then this cute little kitty we picked up a couple of months ago reminds me of the joy of Christmas.  Life is fun.  Christmas is having the family together.  Sure, we get to exchange presents, but then after the hustle and bustle is done, we can all relax and enjoy life.

And sleep.

To all my homies going through the Christmas fatigue, I say: let's weather the storm together.  Let's survive the crowded shopping sprees, and the online orders while remembering to clear out cookies and emails to hide our tracks from the kids.  Let's survive that Christmas Eve shopping where Daddies like me go out for those last minute gifts (yeah ... I usually see mainly guys out that night).  It'll all be worth it in the end.

And to remind us of the fun that is to come, here's another picture of our kitty: