Christmas is Just Alright With Me

I needed to look at pretty flowers tonight.

I don't know if you were reading my old blog last year, but back then I wrote this post about how I was right with Christmas now that I was older, and last year I really was. This year has been a little different - I'm just not feeling it.

Yes, this weekend was fun. On Sunday S. went with me and the girls to cut down our tree and then we went to see a cheesy girl movie like we normally do over the holidays and it was all very sweet and nice. When I got home and went to put up the tree, I couldn't find the stand for it. I ripped everything out of my scary walk-in closet, but to no avail. Then Coadster reminded me that I had put it in the shed. I slipped some shoes on and was about to go out, when she said, "No, Mom. You put it in the shed last year." Which meant that it, along with the side mirror on my car was probably somewhere in Hickory Hill Park. So, now seven months after the tornado, I'm still being reminded of how bad it sucked.

On Monday I came home from work to find a Christmas card from some of my neighbors who live on Hotz Street. Inside it, they had included a little Christmas letter. The letter detailed their year - how they still didn't have their garage fixed after the storm and how their cat was diagnosed with diabetes and how their dog (which was like a child to them) had died of leukemia. I have to say, it was a refreshing change from those ones you get where people go on and on about how their kids are geniuses and their husbands are amazing and they work forty hours a week and volunteer at a homeless shelter and then go out and milk their own cows and churn their own butter and I keep waiting for next year's letter to be sent from the psych ward where they are finally getting the meds they need to calm their manic episodes.

While my neighbors' letter was a little depressing, I was right there with them. This has been a particularly sucky year for me and many of the people who live around me. There have been so many deaths and disappointments and I'm personally trying to financially dig out after the tornado. It's no wonder that I'm not totally into the holiday spirit this year.

I'm not writing this to try to ruin everyone else's good cheer either. I'm just saying that if I'm not quite perky and happy and bursting with love, (because I know you've all come to expect that from me) you now know why. When I was younger, I used to think that whatever didn't kill me, made me more bitter. But this time, I've actually been feeling kind of hopeful that next year has got to be better. I've never heard of anyone getting hit by a tornado twice in two years. I keep threatening to buy a lotto ticket - maybe I'll do that this weekend.