Christmas is about God sending a little baby to save the world ... It's about being thankful for what that baby grew up to be and how baby Jesus became the Savior of us all.  We can look around us every day and see evidence of a loving Creator, whether it's a songbird outside our window, the smell of fresh cut grass or a beautiful sunset ... He's there every day, but long before any of us were even thought of, God chose to show us how MUCH He loved us ... to show us what he was willing to do to insure that we could all be with Him FOREVER.

Every parent who has ever sent a son into battle knows a portion of what God must have felt, sending their precious child into harms way to defend the rest of us ... Any one who has lost a loved one knows a portion of what God must have felt ... Any farmer who has left his flock to go after one that was lost or left behind understands a portion of what God must have felt ... Any parent who has watched their child do a very good thing and felt their heart swell with pride is the way God feels when He looks down on us.

God knows what we have been through.  He was there when we acted foolishly and made mistakes.  He was there when in spite of what was happening around us, we chose to do the right thing.  Who do you think gave you the idea?  Who do you think whispers to us when there is a decision to be made?  Who do you think whispers to us when we are headed into a dangerous place?  Who do you think is whispering to us at the beginning of each new day?

"Get up Sweetie.  Wake up.  I have prepared the most wonderful day for you.  I have little miracles set up all along your path today.  Keep your eyes open.  I wouldn't want you to miss a single one!  I love you.  C'mon ... let me show you my surprise!"

Second, No matter where you are or what you are doing, stop a minute and look around!  You already have EVERYTHING you need to be happy because happiness starts inside you.  You want this holiday to be special because you LOVE them, right?  Right!  Instead of looking for "the perfect gift", think about how you can show them how much you love them.  Let whatever you do be a token of your LOVE.

It does change how you look at the crowds and the traffic and the rush!  How can you not smile at the people you meet?  You are all out there searching for tokens of your love for the people in your life!  That should be EXCITING for every one involved!  What good is a token of our love if we got mad at the lady that took our parking place, complained to the other people in the check-out line about how long this was taking, glared at the clerk when the cash register messed up, ran into a display with our cart because we were in too much of a hurry, loaded the car and leaving the cart for someone else to worry about, rush home, throw some wrapping paper on it and put it under the tree, happy to have that one out of the way?  You didn't really put much love in that little token of love, did you?

If the purpose is to give love, you need to give patience, kindness and peace all along the way!  Who cares if you missed that parking place?  There's plenty of places to park.  Would it kill you to wait in line a little longer?  Isn't there something you could do to pass the time instead of complaining to the people around you?  What's your hurry?  Slow down!  You might actually see something that will make you smile.  Everyone else is out shopping too.  The odds are good that you will run into old friends and neighbors.  What a great opportunity to share some of that HOLIDAY CHEER they sing about!  Take a minute.  Ask them how they are doing?  Give them a hug.  When you get home, make yourself some cocoa, coffee or tea, turn on some Christmas music and wrap your little token of love with care.  Take a little extra time to write a note that says, in your own words, "I am so thankful that you are in my life."

Third, while you are thinking about God's love for us and your love for friends and family, take some time to love yourself!

Of course, the calendar is full of Christmas Programs and Concerts and Tree Lightings and Office Parties and Drop-Ins ... LOTS of things you feel you have to do.  You have some things you want to bake.  There is always last minute shopping.  BUT, what are you going to do for you?  You probably aren't on the top of your Christmas list, but you need to be on there somewhere!

Give yourself the gift of time.  Breathing Space.  A little moment in the middle of it all to regroup and refuel.  Do something you really want to do!  Maybe, make some popcorn and watch a favorite movie ... whether it's a Christmas movie or a classic ... do it for you.  Maybe, it's a luxurious bubble bath?  Maybe, a long walk in the woods?  Maybe, a hobby?  Painting or scrap booking or a jigsaw puzzle?  Maybe, you really would like to meet a friend for coffee and dessert?  Maybe, you would like to take a holiday drive, complete with a hot cup of cocoa, Christmas Music and a neighborhood full of Christmas Lights?  Maybe, there is a great big lighted Christmas Tree in your town that would be just perfect for laying your cares and burdens down and asking God to take care of them for you?  Any one of those things can become an annual tradition for you, some private moment that you give yourself?

My holidays are much more joyful these days.  I try to keep them much simpler than in past years.  I try to be extra kind to the clerks and waiters and strangers that I pass by ... I say MERRY CHRISTMAS as much and as often as I can, to remind myself and those around me that HE IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

Holidays haven't always been this way!  There were some of those first holidays away from home when work kept me away from my family.  There were holidays with in-laws and other people's families where the company was nice and the food was good but it still wasn't HOME.  There were the holidays as a single mom when I worried about whether there would be enough money for food and gifts.  There were BIG family holidays, crammed full of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and all their friends!

There were also those joyless, sad holidays with a past abusive partner.  Holidays with a man (or woman) like that are never fun.  Nothing I did was ever good enough!  I would shop for weeks, looking for exactly the perfect gifts for him and he would run around his house the night before, grabbing things he didn't want or use anymore and wrap them up for me!

I am rolling my eyes and saying with sarcasm: 

"Real romantic!" 

I would cook for days, preparing traditional holiday favorites and nothing was ever good enough for him.  He would complain all through dinner.  Most of his life, he has cooked his own holiday meals which consisted of a six pack and cold pizza, but instead of being grateful that I went to so much trouble for him, he was moody and critical.

I couldn't help but wonder what there was to celebrate?  He claimed he didn't believe in Christmas anyway ... that it wasn't the "real" day Jesus was born so why honor a pagan tradition?  I always thought that was odd.  I read what Dr. Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited, Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist, and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths, thought about holidays and a big light went off!  So THAT'S why he was so weird about holidays! 

Here's what Dr. Vaknin wrote:

Holiday blues are a common occurrence even among the mentally sound. In me they provoke a pathological envy. I am jealous at others for having a family, or for being able to celebrate lavishly, or for being in the right, festive mood. I keep telling myself:

Look at those inferior imitations of humans, slaves of their animated corpses, wasting their time, pretending to be happy". Yet, deep inside, I know that I am the defective one. I realize that my inability to rejoice is a protracted and unusual punishment I do to myself. I am sad and enraged. I want to spoil it for those who can. I want them to share my misery, to reduce them to my level of emotional abstinence and absence.

I hate humans because I am unable to be one.

A long time ago, I wrote ( http://samvak.tripod.com/archive22.html ):

I hate holidays and birthdays, including my birthday. It is because I hate it when other people are happy if I am not the cause of it. I have to be the prime mover and shaker of EVERYONE's mood. And no one will tell me HOW I should feel. I am my own master. I feel that their happiness is false, fake, forced. I feel that they are hypocrites, dissimulating joy where there is none. I feel envious, humiliated by my envy, and enraged by my humiliation.

I feel that they are the recipients of a gift I will never have: the ability to enjoy life and to feel joy. And then I do my best to destroy their mood:  I bring bad news, provoke a fight, make a disparaging remark, project a dire future, sow uncertainty in the relationship, and when the other person is sour and sad, I feel relieved.

It's back to normal. My mood improves dramatically and I try to cheer her up. Now if she does cheer up - it is REAL. It is my doing. I controlled it. And I controlled HER.

Holidays remind me of my childhood, of the supportive and loving family I never had, of what could have been, and never was, and, as I grow older, I know, will never be. I feel deprived and, coupled with my rampant paranoia, I feel cheated and persecuted. I rail against the indifferent injustice of a faceless, cold world. Holidays are a conspiracy of the emotional haves against the emotional haves not.

Birthdays are an injury, an imposition, a reminder of vulnerability, a fake event artificially construed. I destroy in order to equalize the misery. I rage in order to induce rage. Holidays create in me an abundance of negative emotions, the only ones I consciously possess.

On holidays and on my birthday, I make it a point to carry on routinely.

I accept no gifts, I do not celebrate, I work till the wee hours of the night. It is a demonstrative refusal to participate, a rejection of social norms, an "in your face" statement of withdrawal. It makes me feel unique. It makes me feel even more deprived and punished. It feeds the furnace of hatred, the bestial anger, the all engulfing scorn I harbor. I want to be drawn out of my sulk and pouting - yet, I decline any such offer, evade any such attempt, hurt those who try to make me smile and to forget. In times like that, in holidays and birthdays, I am reminded of this fundamental truth: my voluptuous, virulent, spiteful, hissing and spitting grudge is all I have. Those who threaten to take it away from me - with their love, affection, compassion, or care - are my mortal enemies indeed.

Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited
Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist,
and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths
By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

Again, I think that describes a pretty sad way to live.  There are some people who really don't want us to "cheer" them up.  "Happiness" is an emotion they never learned to trust.  Men like him must like it or they wouldn't insist on living that way.  What does your man do with your holidays?  Does he rain on your parade?  Does he start a fight just so he won't have to go spend time with your family?  Does he start a fight with you so that it's okay (you're actually glad he's gone so the rest of you can get some peace!) for him to duck out and go to the bar with his buddies?  How many holidays are you going to let him ruin?
 

What can you do if you are still with the man (or woman) that abuses you?

What can you do if this is the first holiday away from that abuse and you are still too tired to participate?   

You can do your best.  That is all you can do.  Remind yourself why YOU celebrate the holiday.  Honor what traditions you can.  There is a spark inside each of us that is always hooked into the goodness and kindness of the world around us.  We are all part of a bigger picture.  We don't always feel connected.  We don't always feel good.  Our world might not seem very kind at all, but the spark is still there, dimly burning, waiting to burn strong again ...

I also read this:
  

"When you discover your own spark, the God within you, many elements that you have felt are wounded can suddenly be healed. 

Letting your spark light up a dark and dangerous world is a way of healing both you and your world.  

Nothing can be more precious than a dark night of the soul, the very darkness of which allows your light (as dim as it might seem to you) to shine.  It may be painful, discouraging, and challenging, but it is nevertheless an important revelation of what your life is about.  In the darkness, you see things you couldn't see in the daylight.  The seeds of spiritual faith ... are found in your darkness.   

You become the wounded healer, someone who has made the descent and knows the territory.  

You take on depth of color and range of feeling.  Your intelligence is now more deeply rooted and not dependent only on facts and reason.  Your darkness has given you character and color and capacity.  Now you are free to make a real contribution.  It is a gift!"  

(Taken from: Dark Nights of the Soul - A Guide To Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals by Thomas Moore)

This year, when I think of the things I am thankful for, I do include the darkest times because those are the times I grew strongest in my faith.  I found strength I never knew I had.  I had to work harder to understand what was going on around me and inside me.  It wasn't easy to find meaning in the midst of so much chaos but I did find meaning!

It quit being about why I was in the dark.  It became more about how to get out of the dark.  Like fumbling around for a candle and a match when the power goes out, it takes time to find the light.  It's not easy.  We are disoriented.  There are obstacles.  Things that we walk past easily in the light become a real test in the dark.  Eventually, our eyes adjust and we quit being afraid and just accept that are some things we will have to do differently ...

But the lights always come back on ... and dark times really do end.

There is always hope.

So this holiday season, the holiday when we celebrate God sending His son as the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, no matter where you are or what you are doing, I would encourage you to let HIS LIGHT shine on YOU. 

Let the feeling of HOPE growing inside YOU be YOUR CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

I'm Being Followed By A Moon Shadow!

The past few days have been one heck of a roller coaster ride!

The best part was watching the moon chase the sun chase the full moon ... Gorgeous game of tag - I even wrote a few notes about it ... Hope you got to see it!