Holly Jolly Christmastime

My sweet dears, as this beautiful Sunday dawned very frostily blue and the palest yellow, I smiled biggo in my squishy bed as I remembered almost instantly with a start that today marks only 7 until Christmas day. In the rush of my world arranging and rearranging all over again (as I've marked with a grin, it's often wont to do), I have almost neglected Christmas this year, which for me has been a strange feeling, as if if I've woken up every day and forgotten to be myself.
Christmas has been the sparkling ruby in my every year for some time now. When I was a child, I was impatient for it to get here, I wanted to demand the days to rush faster and faster and for it to be that sparkling, overabundant morning as quickly as possible. Now, I wish the days would drag themselves before me. I have only one week before Christmas falls like the softest of snow over the night when the stars blaze like they forget to the rest of the year. One more week until the whole world is hushed in the full moon, except for my pounding heart.
I've felt sheepish about Christmas this year. I can acknowledge without shame, that I feel an enthusiasm for the holidays and celebrations, that my adorable comrades my fellow age no longer feel. In fact, it's awful hard for me to find anyone that shares the way the spirit of Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays and even Independence Day fills me with complete glee.
But Christmas... is the best of them all. The summer has ferns and flags, Easter the pastels and new baby chicks at Agway to hold, but Christmas has the most splendor of any season. The red and gold, the tinsel and baubles in every corner, my beloved evergreens dressed up in every finery imaginable, the whisper of a magic so pure, so strong that you have to fight a furious battle in order not to join it.
Mostly, the only place that I can find Christmas in the new and more grown-up world I'm swiftly entering is in the relentless advertisement of stores and companies, which makes my heart sadder than there are words to tell. I know a lot of my very warm-hearted and wondrous friends and family who just really don't get into Christmas, because the only place they've seen it expressed too, is in the ridiculous ads on their T.V's and in that strange sanitorium of Wally World.
Oh but that's not my Christmas!
My Christmas is that little chill that you get when you find yourself deliciously alone in the heart of the woods, and you can feel the trees watching you with unseen affection. Christmas isn't about what you buy at all, though of course we all know that deep in our souls. Christmas is something entirely different, and I've clung to it as stubbornly as I cling to almost everything else that has slipped through my fingers in pursuit of fame and fortune in the modern world.
Christmas is much different than money or influence, and I know that people remember the trueness of it, it's just that like my beautiful God, it takes a conscious decision to pursue and it unveils itself slowly but in time, generously with things unfamiliar. Christmas wraps us all up every year in a mystery too pure and glorious for words, that there was once upon a time as all the best stories begin, in a country of green hills and the cosmos like a great wash of ocean overhead, a new child who would teach us all what it means to be a child like Him too. Every year on the 25th, I remember, for all the times throughout the year I've forgotten in my haste to be a part of my swirling and beautiful circle of peers who have forgotten as well.
Anyone can be a child like the child that was born that night, at whatever true month of the year it really was. It doesn't matter if you're a 103 or only 22 like me, everyone can learn to be a child like that; one who would give His life for the people He loved and give to them every gift in His possession, and especially of Himself.
He teaches me how to be a child like that. One who takes the time to give foot rubs and have scrumptious dinners with everyone I love, a child who walks without fear on water that holds me up and who can still see the holy exuberance of all this gorgeous life swelling up around me.
Now, some people get upset at this time, saying adorable things like "Jesus is the reason for the season" and other little things because they're hurt and saddened that the world doesn't recognize Him now like it did that. For me, a goofy little kiddo awash in her plethora of lights and ornaments, Jesus is the reason for everything, not just Christmas, and it's because He is everything. He's lilac in the spring, cool rivers in the summer, a suspicious and overwhelming star in the night sky that says "I'm here for you my loves"
He's the reason because if I know how to love at all, it's because He taught me. That love isn't about what I can buy for you (although I must admit I'm a presents fiend and I suspect He is too), it's about the offer to share my life, like He offered so many nights ago in that little town of Bethlehem, sweetly lying like the eye of a hurricane that would sweep over all of us.
Christmas is the offer of life. And I pray to God that I always feel the call that all of Nature sings, to take that offer and treasure it at every second. The world bursts into bloom in the spring, but the heart opens up like summer at Christmastime if you listen to all that's going on around you, away from the bustle of the shopping malls and the angry people in long lines everywhere you go. We're all being invited to the most beautiful party we could imagine. A party where the saints are our friends and come to check in on us, asleep with our sugar plums late at night. A party about promises kept, which is the very best kind. Of course, Christmas is a human created sort of thing, but humans make beautiful things. I think that someone who truly keeps Christmas makes our God smile with a biggo smile, even if it's all just His children playing dress up and pretend again, trying to understand something too miraculous for the smallness of their minds.
I'm sure my beautiful Jesus most likely wasn't born once upon a December, there were most likely no reindeer or jolly old elves presiding, but I think that every aspect of this Universal celebration is precious. The giving, the snow or lack thereof that calls us into nature, the feasts we have to remind our family how much we love each other, the waiting and then the answering of the wait when love's vow is kept.
Life is so remarkable and exquisitely beautiful, so filled with impeccable detail and craftsmanship and sometimes I remember, most often around Christmas, that there is no requirement that says it had to be this way. We turned our backs on trust and love, and no one had to come running after to tap us on the shoulder. No one ever had to guarantee that humans could continue, could fall from grace and return to sit in it's lap, loved even more than before the journey. But it is like this. We are loved. And this much!
At Christmas it falls in warm showers of joy. Joy that this world, at it's essence is love-designed and each of us will continue in this eternity of creation and affection.
Every year when I wrestle with an adorable conifer, slip out into the new snow with a sled and eyes wide, munch cookies under the covers while the Grinch steals Christmas over and over again, I remember who I am and where I am going. I remember that I am God-loved and created. I remember the invite to the party I don't technically deserve to attend, but that I'm an honored guest at every December. The grand ball that all of space, time, heaven and earth take place in, is waiting for me to arrive to the celebration too. The celebration of God's infinite loving kindness, that He renews in us every year and urges us to replicate among each other.
So Christmas for me is very little about whatever waits for me under that plump and bedazzling pine, and very much about what waits for me at every moment of my life, a great and mysterious gift that I can tear the ribbons from and dive into anytime I'd like.
Christmas for me is an immersion in true life, God life, where beautiful surprises take place in misted hills like the ones outside my house, where if reindeer do fly maybe this year I'll catch them at it, where this is endlessly, endlessly more than what I see and register every day. There's a whole world of spirit, love and fairytale that's mine to enter if I would just choose to do it.
If I'd been there that trembling, miraculous night, hamming it up with my sheepy pals, I'd have gone tearing over those hills when angels plummeted like comets to where I stood and sang me the first carols. My heart would've broken to see Him, mortal like me, but pulsing with a patience and mercy that I can only dream of extending like He knows how. I would have been sore afraid too, but not because I could finally see, but for that I had lived life so blindly and it had taken a little boy to snap me back to consciousness and to take my place in His circle that begs us all to step in.
So Merry Christmas my sweetest of friends and fambly! I bet I'll write a little more as I go on, and the days zoom up faster and faster. We don't even have a tree yet this year and I haven't bought a darn present except for something very silly for my sister that involves narwhals and finger puppets. But Merry, Merry Christmas! May your hearts be light as the snow that better get here before the 24th if it doesn't want to deal with my outrage. May your hug and cuddle with all the ones you love, basking in the glow of all these lights, all this love. And I know that Christmas has gone commercial and garish and awful, but don't take the invitation the stores offer you. Keep the money in your checking account, and instead give kisses and candy canes and warm wishes and thoughtful prayers. Be in attendance with this weird kiddo, who will be bright eyed and bushy tailed all Christmas Eve, keeping a weather eye on the world outside the window and enjoying copious amounts of cocoa and cookies (hope Santa isn't too hungry this year!)
Have a holly jolly Christmas, a merry, laughing, warm Christmas and answer the call any way your heart hears it, to life ringing like bells for all of us, the whole Universe caroling to us at every home to go out and be one with the celebration of it all.
<3

Overwhelming Goodness

Lately, my sweet little blargh, I've been feeling over my head in life.
These beautiful days... I can feel the wonder and mystery of being able to be here on Earth, now, at such a fascinating time of life for people, but most of the time, I feel just plain scared. There's too much here, too much that needs to be done and taken care of, especially for an absentminded girl like me. There's too many forms I haven't filled out and sent in, too much money I'm sposed to have and don't cause I had to pay for a big lofty apartment, and pickles and lettuce and apples for the fridge, and then all that gasoline to get from the big lofty apartment to the Co-Op where I work to pay for it all.
There's just too much here. Too many parking tickets, restrictions, guidelines, things I'm sposed to be keeping track of. My license is expired, the high school still hasn't sent my (hopefully!) future college my transcripts, I haven't paid the electricity bill yet or sent a cheque to the nice lady who let us use her security deposit when she turned over the apartment to us. I forgot to clean up last night after peace pasta and giggling with Celly, the compost is full again and I spilled a ginger soda all over the hardwood floor last night.
Christmas, beautiful, graceful Christmas is hovering near and cozy on the horizon... and I haven't even barely had the time to steep in it's presence. I have to go to the adorable Co-Op, have to get prints ordered for all the wonderful people I took peektures for, have to somehow figure out how to manage a checking account and then set up PayPal online so I can get paid for peektures, the list of tasks is endless... have to lie down on the floor and cry because this is all just too much! How do people survive nowadays? I barely understand it...
How is it that once you're an adult, the world stops being it's magical self? I think that maybe it's only because when you're "grown up" you're far too busy to quietly watch all of the joy of it unfold. When you do have some free time, you're not sure what to do with yourself because your heart is sick with worry, so whole starry evenings get lost in front of the TV with alcoholic beverages.
I just remember my sweet blargh... I remember there being so much more, before everyone decided to be cool and become strangled by their careers and obligations.
The days used to be so full... but full of overwhelming goodness. I tore out of bed at 7 in the morning when I was little cause I had play to make happen, dinosaur instant oatmeal to eat, and big important matters to attend to outside. If it was Christmastime... well... then there were snowmen to build, icicles to steal from the overhang of the garage, giant hills to be conquered in my big green sled, Christmas specials to watch, and cookies to pilfer from the kitchen. I remember long winter days full of nothing but Bing Crosby singing to me about wonderland, Barbie dolls in my lap in outrageous outfits and hot chocolate in a mug at my side.
When did it become uncool to enjoy life?!?
Why is it no longer socially acceptable to mess around like I did when I was little. Now if I'm an adult and outside, I have to be doing some sort of activity that's considered normal and productive like cross-country skiing or tracking partridges. I love chasing partridges but I just don't understand why I'm not supposed to be playing around anymore! Why can't people my age go swimming, sledding or fort-building without toting a chest of beers along with them? Why does everything I want to do in life have a price-tag of shame stapled to it?
I'm just not sure I understand... I know that having a fun place to stay with people you love is important and I'm more than willing to pay for one, more than willing to zoom up to the Co-Op and spend my days unwrapping boxes of yogurt and making people veggie wraps, more than willing even to pay for the fun of the Christmas lights strung around my bed that turn on when I plug them in (magic!). I'm happy to pay for what it takes to keep the lofty apartment warmer inside than it is outside, willing to vacuum and mop up all the sodas I'm inevitably going to bless the floor with, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the great happiness that God is showering each of us with every single second, that we just shrug off because we have so much stuff on our shoulders already that we can't even handle the extra weight that a little fairy dust requires.
My heart and Lulu being was made of adventure and breaking out of all these dumbo boxes people keep around themselves. People have been quite disappointed with me because I don't like to play by certain rules, but that's because rules are sometimes estupido! Freedom is important and it's precious and sacred and everyone should relish it with all their hearts. Here in A Merry Ca where we're so unbelievably fortunate to practically do whatever we want whenever we want to do it, we should be freaking out!
I can go stand on the sidewalk right now and sing wassails to every person who walks by me, but of course I won't because I'd get punched in the nose, because having fun and being weird isn't acceptable. People have got to be safe and normal and conform at all times or else they're "nerds" and this and that and God help us all if we don't all wear the latest fashions, drive a Mercedes and be miserable like everyone else.
Had it, I have! Life is about joy and all of that corny loving, caring, sharing goodness. Life isn't normal! This is all the most surreal thing that will ever happen to us, and I want to just go crazy in it. I want to take risks, possibly even dumb ones. Why shouldn't I? I didn't ask to be here, I didn't create myself out of moonlight and  a little clay, my sweet God thought of me and thought I was nice enough to make!
Sweet cheez-whiz! I get to be here because I was an idea that God loved, so He made me happen. I'll be darned like a sock if I lay around with a cold one in my hand because I can't think of anything better to do, and life sucks because I don't live it and I expect to be entertained before I die, unfulfilled.
Here is what I, a very weird Lulu think; I think it's crazy what people have set up! This whole system is completely nuts and all these guidelines for who I'm supposed to be as a person, as a woman, are nuts, and I don't think I can bear to listen to them anymore.
I think I'm pretty decent the way I am, and I don't need to be 90 pounds with a disproportionate amount of voluptuousness, wearing whatever name people have slapped onto silly clothes and insisted that are awesome and need to be worn by everyone. I don't need to wear bikinis (they're practically impossible to have water fights in), I don't need to drink alcohol or smoke anything, I don't need to go to this school and get certain pieces of paper. I need to be alive, and to be Lulu, and above all, to be profoundly grateful for each and every moment that rushes by me, never to be seen again.
I'm tired of taking this all for granted, I'm tired of trying to be normal and safe. God has set the beautiful boundaries that protect my heart. Everything else is open pasture. If I get lost somewhere, He'll come and find me like He promises. I just don't want myself, or anyone else to be mad or sad at themselves anymore. I want for it to be okay to mess up, even big time, and to simply learn from it. No one needs to drag around their past and mourn every detail of the choices they made. For each situation there is the right thing to do and the wrong thing, and if you somehow managed to pick the right one every single time in your life, you would be Jesus.
But since you're not, everything is forgivable and forgettable. I don't care about what the standards are, I'm not going to carry a grudge or be bitter towards anyone. There are people who have made me sad in my lifetime, just as there are in everyones life ( I AM one of those people to someone else) but I'm not going to carry that sadness. In the end, it was mostly me who made me sad and I'm not even going to be mad at myself either. Love is the answer to each of my worries, to each situation that I've been put in where I said either the right or wrong thing, and I know that love will come pouring out of my story in the end.
I decided a long time ago when I was little, that I wouldn't hate anyone, especially for making me sad, but instead I would try to see things from where they stood and like them anyways and people have thought badly of me for it, but I'm tired of being expected to be angry and bitter like so many of my dear friends here.
I want to be happy. I want to run around and hoot and holler. I want to reject the things that society has asked me to embrace because "everyone's doing it". Just the fact that almost everyone I know struggles with alcohol at least occasionally makes me resolved to never really touch the stuff. If everyone's doing it then I want to find my own thing to do. I'll develop a grapefruit juice problem.
At the end my dear little blargh, after all this ranting and raving, what I mean by it is that the return to innocence that everyone's deepest heart is craving is found by simply returning to it instead of moping that it's lost (which is what I've been doing hehe).
Bring on the sunshine and guacamole and silly adventures!
Bring on all this overwhelming goodness, I want to greet it every single day with all the happiness I have!