I just spent a couple of hours Christmas shopping, sans kids.

I got S a video trilogy that shall remain nameless on the off chance he finds this site. I’m thinking I might give a movie marathon basket to go with it.

Man, I should have gotten the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I would have made a basket with all sorts of hobbity foods—sausage, apples, wasa crisp as stand in for the elven lembas bread, ale, mirth leaf (I think that’s tobacco,) some smoked salmon (close enough to raw fishies,) maybe I could even get some rabbit, or perhaps some kind of jerky would be rough enough to stand in for travel foods. Alas, I did not think of this when I picked my movie trilogy, and the one I got does not lend itself so nicely to cuisine.

I got some videos for kids, too. Not cartoons, but the first Harry Potter and The Princess Bride. I know G likes the first, and I’m sure he’ll like the second, although it is going as a present to Ivy (really for me, but we’ll just say Ivy.)

Then I went to the bookstore and started to get overwhelmed. I really haven’t bought books for the kids in so long there were too many things to choose from. So many lovely books. It started to depress me, since I only had the cash in my wallet and it would have been so easy to go over that limit. Put back the hard cover Madeline book and got the soft cover instead. Put back the multiple Suesses. Resisted continuing to browse. I did get a gorgeous animal book for G, and a couple of books for I, but I couldn’t get the mini library that I wanted.

I think one of the keys to having a merry little Christmas is to not get upset that you can’t have everything you want. I suppose that Christmas, in a way, is about wishes. It’s become way too materialistic for my liking, but it is about wishes, even when they are not materialistic. Wishing your family could be all together and happy with no drama, wishing you could bake more and more cookies, wishing your house could be lit up with festivities and spotlessly clean, wishing you could have another serving of Christmas ham, wishing you could go to a million parties, or wishing you could stay home with a movie and a cup of hot cocoa. And we can’t always get those things we wish for.

I guess there has to be some sort of balance between wishing for all that good cheer and being content in what your life actually is. Maybe that’s why the holidays are so notorious for depression and suicide, because the reality almost never lives up to the wishes and expectations.

Maybe that’s also why we should focus on the merry LITTLE part of Christmas. Focus on the little joys, the little goals, the little life that is going on in the present (not in the presents, but in the present.)

I want to focus on the Christmas lights, and G’s anticipation. The smell of evergreen trees. The holiday movies on tv. Singing carols. Cookies. Taking the time to paint or stitch or bake something by hand, something intended for someone I love.

Merry (little) Christmas

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