Saturday, December 5, 2009

That Time of Year Again! Happy Hollidays!

Well, Christmas time is here again and I will soon hit the age of 53. That will be Christmas Eve, for those who don't know that already. I sometimes look back on my life and wonder, "What if". What if I had gone to college instead of marrying my first husband? What if I had chosen to marry someone else instead? Would I have been blessed with children? Grandchildren? Would I be alone now? You always wonder about the road not taken. You are given choices in your life and you have to make the best of them. I made some bad choices and I made some great choices and I guess that is what life is really all about, right?

My philosophy on life is: Grab on with both hands and don't let go! Take those classes at the community college if you want. Learn to scuba dive. Go white water rafting. Climb those rocks, if that is what you want. Dance. Laugh. Love. With all of your being. When you are ready to leave this world, you will know that you have lived. Never let anyone keep you down. Someone once told me, when I was complaining about getting no respect, that people treat you the way you teach them to treat you. If you show no respect for yourself, no one else will either. It took me a long time to learn that but once I did, my entire life changed. I now know that the people I care about, care about me in return. I no longer feel like a unloved and unwanted nobody. You should try it. It really works.

With the holidays comes stress. You have to find that perfect gift for that special someone. You battle the masses at the malls. Fight for even the farthest parking space, and then you have to search through the stores that are filled with cranky salespeople who only want to get home and off their aching feet. Can you really blame them? Once you have found the gifts, after hours and hours of searching, going from store to store, you now have to lug it home and wrap it before tucking it safely beneath the artificial tree trimmed with bright colored blinking lights and hand made ornaments. Now, you can relax, right? Wrong. You realize you forgot to get a special gift for that friend at work or your brother and now you have to wage the battle again tomorrow. It is never ending. The true sentiment has been lost in all of the commercialism that has become what is supposed to be "the most wonderful time of the year".

My advice? Don't! Don't brave the malls. Don't haunt the department stores at the ridiculous hours of before dawn sales just to save 10%. Find something that you can all do together as a family. Help out at a homeless shelter. Collect clothes and blankets to donate to those in need. Pack up a bunch of sandwiches and hand them out to the homeless that you see wandering the streets. Isn't this what the term "Peace on Earth, and Good Will toward men" truly means?

I hope you all have a great and memorable holiday. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all of you!