It happens every year..

this feeling I get that makes me want to rebel.

I feel it every year...

Right about the time we start gathering our recipes for Thanksgiving dinner,

the retail megaphones start blurting out all the things we need to accumulate to be 

happy

normal

hip

cool

Trees are cut,

 lights are strung,

 music about a baby and a Santa, blares

And we are brainwashed into thinking that we deserve to make 

wish lists

"Who decided that on Jesus birthday WE should receive gifts to people who are not in need?"

I am not in need

my children are not in need

my family is not in need

my friends are not in need...

We are in want

but not in need.

I have met people in great need this year

some who are homeless

some who are alone

some who really and truly have next to nothing

some who have suffered through deaths...

They are the ones who deserve to make lists...

And when I read THIS this morning

and see the tiny children growing up so...right...

I regret that I have not always felt this way...

that it is only in the last decade of years or so

that my eyes have slowly shifted off my own household

and on to another's.

My children have not always known a mom who thinks to bless outside our home before we bless those inside it.  I can only trust that the mom they remember is the one of their teenage years...

I trust they remember me, not as the one who took away their Christmas

but the one who showed them Christmas...

better late than never...

I'm still figuring it all out

how to give beyond what I can 

but not feel the burden to do everything all at one time 

Who decided that Christmas was the one time of year that we feel all 

CHRISTmasy and giving

and the rest of the year we don't?

What do we really need this year?

I know the answer to that for my own family...

and it's not popular

and it seems all Scroogey

but it's not...

It's Jesus

and only Jesus.

This is my journey...not meant to condemn or judge another's 

it's putting down thoughts on a page

and letting the words fall as they may..

So that I remember..

so that my children pick up where I left off someday...