Of Christmas

The veggie turkey is made (a 2-day process, and WORTH it! Even my carnivore friends and my dogs love the stuff). The decorations are up. All the presents are made/wrapped/labelled/posted under the tree. The car's filled up and checked for our trip to Cape Town to be with family for lunch. The breakfast sticky buns are rising and will be baked first-thing in the morning. The present-opening is timed so my son can watch his new Bionicle video before we head to church. (We don't yet know what we'll do on Christmas eve - tonight - though)

And yet this year there seems to be an emptiness around Christmas. I don't know why. I see Jamie and others have the same thing. I just can't seem to connect to the REAL Spirit of the Season, to focus completely on why we're doing everything we're doing. It feels a bit empty somehow and I don't know how to fill it up.

Perhaps it's the rush toward the end of the year that has me tired out. Perhaps it's a spritual emptiness that seems to haunt me and spring up every now and then. Perhaps it's that I really don't know the Son as well as I had hoped, and as such can't celebrate His birth and death in the way I should. I just don't know.

Maybe the spirit will strike at midnight like a ghost of Christmas past when enthusiasm and excitement still reigned supreme. Or I might get a spark at church tomorrow morning. I really hope I do. As much as I don't want to just "do church" anymore, I also don't just want to go through the festive motions - I want Christmas to really Mean Something this year. I really, really want it to.