The Now of Christmas

It's a quiet Sunday morning and I think to myself, "If I was a truly good person I'd be in church right now" or, "I should be up and doing things", after all there are Christmas trees to finish trimming, floors that need vacuuming, clothes that need folding, "I need to get on top of them". Instead I've been lying prone of my backside hanging out with my cat Jamie. He's in the mood for kitty cuddling. In fact, he sits here with me now, watching my fingers fly across the keys. If I had to guess, he's probably torn between wondering why am I doing this, when he has come in all this state to be with me and I could be petting him! Or whether or not to attack the moving fingers. He decides on the latter, dammit, he deserves my attention! You can't believe the number of backspaces I've done in the last few moments.

Jamie, in an odd way, is teaching me something. Life's moments cannot be pre-thought, organized or measured. I keep trying to do this. It's as if my life was some sort of carefully staged road-show, complete with choreography, lines to learn and elaborate sets and props.

I had another of these wake up calls yesterday. It was my new Not Non-Company's annual Christmas Party and I had the responsibility of organizing it. Weeks of preparations for four (4) hours. I start off for the party early, so that I can be there an hour before the festivities start. Traffic is heavy and I am angry and tight. I realize that I need to get gasoline and resent the need to stop. Curse my lack of preparedness. I angrily rant that "I don't even want to go to this g'dmned thing". A weak moment later, I realize that, it's more than the traffic, more than the strain of wanting everything to go perfectly, I'm tired of going to these things alone. I am so sick of being the single in the room. I have one moment, where I think, 'I can't do this', and I nearly text my boss that I've had a personal emergency and can't make it. I hang my head over the steering wheel and I pray, "Please God, I need an attitude adjustment and pronto! Please give me a break with the traffic. Just please help".

After all my whingeing and whining and dire predictions of being tardy, I pull into the venue, exactly one (1) hour before the start, just as planned. The club where the party is being held is surprisingly beautiful, staggeringly beautiful. Decked out to the nines for Christmas, in fact, it couldn't be more Christmassy. I check everything, it's organized to plan. And then I have the moment, that I realize I'm there for, the upper room in which the party is being held looks out onto the golf course, but it's more than that, it's a view of old Florida, ponds, swamps of great Cypresses, swaying palms and heron and egret. And it's my favorite time of day, that whisper of time between day and night. Twilight, the stars just starting to come out, and it's absolutely magical. I'm all alone, the guests haven't arrived yet, there's no noise, just this sort of hushed reverent silence as I watched day turn to night. I couldn't tell you how long I stood at that window and stared out; time just ceased to exist. Waiters silently went in and out, bustling about with trays and all of the minutiae that goes in these types of things and I barely saw them, they seemed to understand that I was lost to them for however long I stood rapt at that window.

Some moments after that, the first guests arrive and with them the noise, people shouting out greetings to one another, spouses that haven't seen other spouses in nearly a year, huddle together to share bits of gossip, and all of the jokes that have probably been served up since Eden. It turns out to be a pretty good party. There were some headaches, missing place cards and the tables set up in groups in five instead of even sixes. As a single person, I forget about the dire need to sit with ones' spouse. I don't sweat odd numbers. I never even think about them. One of the wives, makes an unkind remark that it's very evident that I have done the table arrangements and not my predecessor who apparently was perfection itself. It wounds me for a few minutes but then I think of the things that I've done right and of my moment with God an hour earlier and the remark loses its' sting.

Sometimes I think that God tantalizes us with views of heaven, with glimpses of the real beauty in life. It's kind of a love note, right from God to us and frequently we, I miss it. I'm moving too fast, too full of the thoughts in my own head, the plans that I have. Today I realize that Christmas, rather than it being this elaborate stage play that we move closer and closer to the opening day of, is measured in small moments. For me, it's taking a few moments to watch my cat Jamie sleeping under the Christmas tree, savoring the cool brisk taste of a peppermint candy cane, sitting in an elaborately beautiful room laughing my head off at the sight of a co-worker's husband wearing an orange paper Christmas cracker crown as my own pink crown slips tipsily over one eye, listening to the sweet little boy voice of Linus reminding Charlie Brown what Christmas is truly all about.

Be there when God slips you your own personal love note.

Don't miss the now of Christmas.