Christmas to Me

Another Christmas has come and gone. I loved it... I always love it. I love it because I take the advice of the great sage philosopher, Charlie Brown, who said, “I won't let commercialism ruin my Christmas!” Of course the presents are nice and I love both the giving and receiving of them, however, Christmas is not about gifts. This is a wonderful lesson that my parents instilled in me and my siblings for years. We believed in Santa while growing up, and we received many gifts from my parents, but they never went overboard with them. We received well thought out gifts and it never meant the dollar sign behind it. I grew up in a very wealthy city. I have had friends who received a snowboard, snow gear, and a computer all in one christmas. Some of my friend's parents spent upwards of $1000 on each kid. My parents never came close to spending that. Did I ever feel left out or less cared for? I should say not! If anything my parents replaced the monetary value of a present with the invaluable gift of a loving and caring home, loving and caring parents, warmth and tradition, fun and comfort, closeness and family. But you see, these gifts have their root in the true meaning and spirit of christmas.

I watched many Christmas movies this year, five versions of A Christmas Carol, movies about Rudolf and Santa, and movies about unbelief and faith. It doesn't matter if it is a Christian film or not, the moral behind every Christmas film has to do with the true meaning of Christmas, the true reason for Christmas – Jesus. I don't care about the controversy behind Christmas actually having been a pagan holiday that the Christians borrowed, it doesn't negate the fact of why we celebrate it today. I don't care what day we celebrate Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge said it the best when he vowed “to keep Christmas all the days of the year.” Christmas isn't a single day, it is only a reminder for what happened one night over 2000 years ago. The day that God, the Lord of the universe, the All Powerful Creator, the Uncreated, made himself nothing. He inserted himself into His creation as part of His creation. The day that God entered the world, mortal. And why did He do this? So that He, the great Father, could make a way to have a relationship with His children who had fallen away from Him. He showed the greatest act of selflessness to repair His family. What does it take to believe in such a story? Faith. What does the repairing of the family promote amongst believers? Friendship. Now think about almost every moral in Christmas movies. Many movies do not say Jesus is the reason for Christmas, for me, I don't mind... Because every Christmas movie I watched screamed his name with the foundations He set when He came to this world. Love, Faith, Selflessness, Family, and Friends. To me, that is what Christmas is all about.

Fall Colors

As the summer fades to fall the trees burn with passion,
Their joy for the upcoming season burst forth in a firey blaze,
Vibrant flames of red, yellow, and orange adorn the quivering limbs,
Knowing they will soon be naked they put on their finest garment,
Their love for fall is proven by their beauty.

Holy Holy Holy

Can you imagine what that sight must be like? Angels at all times surrounding the God of the universe calling out “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Can you see them? The beautiful, terrifying beings surrounding the One who can not be seen with earthly eyes lest they should die. Oh how envious I am standing here on Earth. Having such profound desire to be in that place of eternity to scream out “Holy Holy Holy” to the God who Loves. The only God who lives yet experienced death. My soul yearns for nothing more but to stand in His presence and exclaim His holiness along with the angelic creatures. How tireless must that job be. How could one do anything but cry out “Holy” in the presence of such magnificence? “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!”

Words Escape Me

The jumbled mess of endless speech rattling about my head makes it quite difficult to put anything on paper. Sitting then with no outlet of communicative abilities, I feel, causes my brain to begin to quietly and ever so slowly wind down to a sputter. But where and how can release be found? In order to order the mess of speech the words must first be directed at something worthy of such attention and focus. But what? Not a What but a Who. Ah there is the answer. Whom shall the words be written about?

The Creature

Close your eyes, now peer deep, deep into the darkness. Do you see it? For some you , you see the creature right away staring right back at you. The second you close your eyes the creature is there, waiting for you, preying on you. You turn and it pounces, and then you're gone. It devours many of you quickly, but from me, it flees. I invite you to join me on my nightly expedition I take in search of this elusive creature. I lie down and close my eyes. Black. Nothing. Emptiness... What was that? Did you see it? Oh such a quick glimpse of that escaping monster, but it was just a glimpse. Now, there is no more nothingness, there is solid ground underfoot. The hunt begins. This is no ordinary hunt, no firearms or weapons of any kind, only bait. For that bait, I offer myself. Yes I desire to draw the creature in by using myself as the lure. Oddly enough the goal of this expedition is to be eaten. However strange that may sound, it is the truth, for you see, this creature in which I hunt is called 'Sleep'. Most nights I seem to repulse the creature. I must wait until it is so hungry that is has no choice but to survive on my measly bones. Unfortunately, the creature does not like the flavor of me. Sometimes I cover myself in Ambien or Melatonin which entices this beast's hunger so that it would feast upon me quickly. The pills are like seasonings it can hardly resist. Lets start the hunt shall we? No seasonings tonight so we must be sneaky in order to capture the creature. The search always begins in the same place. It seems to be a kind of a cave with echoing walls. At all times these walls are bouncing off thoughts and ideas being dreamed up. If we are not careful we may get stuck in here for hours. Its too loud in here so the creature hides from this place. I'll teach you a secret to get out. All the really good thoughts or ideas cannot stay in the cave, they must break out to the storage area. All you have to do is wait for a good one and grab on. There's one now, grab it! The flight through the cave was not so bad, was it? Weird place we're in now though huh? All those good thoughts and ideas have to come here to be sorted. Its kind of like a filing shelf in a mail room. Rows and rows and columns and columns of cubby boxes. Each thought and idea get neatly sorted in theses cubbies for quick reference or decision making. There are different sections for different topics or things or people. The cave is quite chaotic, but here, here is organized. But still no creature to be found... Lets check up, yes up, look up. This is one of my favorite things here. Look at all the cogs, wheels, sprockets, cranks all of different sizes. Some massive, some miniscule. All intertwined and complex each affecting one another. The closest I can come to explaining this is like the inner workings of a clock, so many sprockets turning dials that all read a different aspect of time yet all speaking of the same time. One sprocket affects the year, another the month, another the day, another the hour, another the minute, another the second. All saying different things yet all saying the same thing. All these gears in here though are moving too fast, they need to be slowed down. Turn that dial over there for me would you? Its over on that control board. Thank you. Ah, now things are starting to slow down. The creature will be easier to find. I have a feeling where it might be tonight. Lets go over to the database archive. Another strange room huh? A room of just filing cabinet after filing cabinet. Open one up... Ha! That one is from my 11th birthday party. Me and three friends went ice skating. Oh look, there's Matt, there's Chad, and even Kris, I almost forgot about him! As you might have guessed these files are full of my memories. Each file contains a different memory, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Many times when I visit this room I open a random file and relive a near forgotten experience. When I'm lucky the creature will sneak up on me while I'm searching through the files. It's in here somewhere I know it... over to the left do you see it? Slowly, look slowly. Don't let it know you see it. Act normal. OK, it looks like we might have finished the hunt. Wait here while I nonchalantly stroll over there. Maybe, just maybe, It'll be hungry enough.
As I neared the creature I was swallowed in a single bite. Sweet, Blissful sleep overcame me, but it was an adventure to get there. I appreciated you accompanying me on my quest for the creature. And I do hope that you are much more appetizing to the beast than I am.

Night Time

Oh Night Time you fiendish brute. You plague me with your silence and taunt me with your darkness. You force me to look upon the emptiness that surrounds me. You cause me to simmer in my mind the thoughts of past and the ideas of could be. Why must you scream your silence in my face, Night Time? With your shouts of nothing I can focus on none else. Trying to sort through the ruminations, when will there be order? When will there be structure? Oh Night Time just go away, leave me for the morning. Allow the morning to devour me in warm light and cheerful noise, away from your incessant quietude. Be gone Night Time. Be gone.

Below Freezing

Its 29 degrees, this makes me smile. My grin from side to side, its nearly a mile. Even though snow will not come my way, the cold will comfort me here today. For some this temperature makes their teeth chatter, not me, It warms my heart as it goes pitter patter. The comfort the cold brings is hard to explain, I love it come sleet, snow, or rain. Lying in bed with big thick covers, its so cozy like newlywed lovers. Rain here tells me snow in the mountains, snow there means fun time with friends. No matter whats going on be it hardship, hurt, or trial. All I know is that the cold will always make me smile.