Christmas

Ultimately, it is about family.  Isn’t it?

And family means all sorts of things to all sorts of people.

To me, family means choices.

Today, I choose not to fight.  I choose not to pick this battle or that one.  I choose to let go.  I choose to love and laugh even if deep down I want to yell and complain.  I choose to breathe in family, to remember how grateful I am for their presence in my life, however limited or overwhelming it may be, depending on the day. 

This Christmas has been a different one for me than any other Christmas, and I do think it has most to do with my immediate family:  my husband, my brother, and my daughter.

My husband is my rock.  He is home.  After eight years together I can say that wherever he is, home is.  So this year, after all this time, I feel like I am home for Christmas because we are together.  My thirty sixth Christmas is the first Christmas I have celebrated in my own house, and felt like I was having Christmas at home.  He heals my wounds, he keeps me steady, he shows me that life is meant to be lived to its fullest, and that you can always come home at the end of the day to recover and begin again.

My brother is my reason.  Whenever I begin to feel irrational about things, I think of what I must look like through his eyes, and it calms me down (mostly).  He is the advocate of the underdog, the savior of the picked upon, the shoe’s on the other foot guy.  Usually I do not even have to hear his thoughts on an issue, I know what he will say, and I bounce my ideas off that.  He reminds me that life is not pure emotion, and that the world does not revolve around me and mine.  His logic brings home that after all, it really is about the ones we love, and that we should love better, without exception.

My daughter is my sunshine.  I cannot be sad long when she looks me in the eyes, grabs my face in both of her tiny, pudgy hands, and says, oh so seriously, “Baby have more cookie.  One more.  Last time.”  She holds her finger up, shaking it up and down, to emphasize the point.  Watching her see the tree with presents under it for the first time, letting her open each present in her own time, which ended up stretching out her present joy for hours, letting her eat cookies for breakfast, cheerios and yogurt melts right before dinner, giving her her own little mug of milk next to her mama’s and papa’s mugs of coffee in the morning, letting her walk next to her stroller instead of sitting inside of it for some of our walk, all of these allowances and tiny pleasures took us out of our usual rigid routine and schedule and made today a real celebratory holiday.  She had a day full of sunshine, so I did as well.

I am not religious.  At this point I do not think I ever will be.  But I believe Jesus lived.  I believed he had a message full of hope, love, acceptance, tolerance, and yes, activism for the poor, the weak, the downtrodden.  Jesus is a hero of mine.  I have admired him for years.  God?  I remain agnostic on that point.  Awesome?  Absolutely.  White?  Absolutely not. (oh, wait, that’s another post)

In the end, this Christmas has been the best Christmas I have ever had.  Because I see the message of Jesus in my husband, in my brother, and in my daughter.  And I ask myself, what would Carlos do?  What would Teno do?  What would Celaya do?

Live fully.  Love hard.  Laugh loud.  That’s what.  And so I will as well.