It's Christmas Day!

I have a nice long weekend away from work, time to really celebrate and stretch out the holiday.

There always seems to be so much pressure to make the day, this one day, perfect. How to spend it in the most perfect way? Watching Christmas movies on TV? I can practically recite "It's a Wonderful Life" by heart. Taking a Christmas day stroll around the neighborhood? We live in the same block that Clement Clark Moore lived when he penned, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." I'm letting Tyler sleep, (even though I'm dying to give him his presents) while I work on the Times crossword with my second cup of tea. WQXR is playing Christmas music.

As a kid I was always let down, disappointed by Christmas. Expecting miracles, I guess. One Christmas when I lived in Philadelphia, I worked at a homeless shelter, serving food on Christmas day. It was probably my most memorable Christmas. We distributed gifts to the people who had gathered there that morning, second hand clothing from the Salvation Army and clean socks, all wrapped in paper and bows. One woman, as she opened her gift of used, imitation leather gloves, exclaimed with gratitude, "Oh, I got gloves! I got gloves." She looked at them in the box as though they were a miracle, and for her, facing a bitter Philadelphia winter on the streets, they most likely were.

I don't expect miracles on Christmas, I just enjoy the special feeling of the day, and I don't feel let down. It is, after all, only a day.


More about Christmas, if you are not tired of it already, on my
History Fotolog