It’s that time of year when we have to take a look at our priorities — particularly when we get to the intersection of things and people (and, of course, we want to choose people).
Now that I have you quite confused, allow me to explain.
I’ve made note of this before, but the Holmes-Rahe scale for measuring stress assigns 12 points to Christmas right off the bat. There’s too much going on, too much to do, and too much to pay attention to. If you have grandchildren (and we have three), there are presents to buy and games to go to and the occasional school and family functions as well. (The youngest grandchild is only 2, so only the presents apply in his case. Still …)
I’m trying to think about Thanksgiving first and then Christmas. Thanksgiving is, of course, a month before what we usually call “the holidays” (Christmas and New Year’s), and it kind of gets shuttled off to the corner by itself.
We got an early start on this particular holiday Saturday when we traveled to Ohio for a family get-together that served as Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving. We renewed connections with my wife’s sisters and the family “over there,” meeting some new people and wondering if the kids’ roughhousing — on a concrete floor — was going to leave their older cousin maimed for life. I was very happy that he survived intact.
We had other things we could have done Saturday, but we made family a priority. Of course, one of the things we could have done Saturday was to watch our grandson play in a basketball tournament.
Making choices leads to a degree of stress, precisely for these reasons. Do we go to Ohio or watch basketball? The dinner is only once a year and there will be more basketball played this winter. That was kind of lightweight in the stress department, but when we hear that Titus was on as a sharpshooter, we kind of regretted not going.
When do we fit the shopping in? When do we do the decorating for Christmas, something we haven’t done for four or five years?
For that matter, there were Christmas movies on the telly. My wife loves Christmas movies and I like figuring out who ends up with who at the end of the movie. (A message to my male colleagues out there: It’s really pretty easy.)
Way too often, it feels like we’re chasing our tails. And those 12 points on the stress scale are way, way, way too few for what we put ourselves through.
We’ve used up my vacation time, so we’re staying right here in Indiana County 90. We may save a few hours, or minutes, or even seconds, by doing our shopping online. I have something to order for Susan that I can order at 2 a.m. when I get home from work. Problem solved, but another problem created. If I order something in the wee hours of the morning, am I in full use of my mental faculties? Will I get the online order correct?
Gulp.
My youngest son Bobby wants to separate Christmas the religious holiday from Christmas the secular holiday. So why don’t we separate the celebration of Christ’s incarnation, the “reason for the season,” from the family gatherings and the gift-giving and the overeating?
That’s something I’ve advocated for as long as I can remember. After all, winter starts only four days before Christmas Day and there’s two more months of snow and cold and all that fun stuff. We could be singing “Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland” then, not when it’s still fall.
I’d like to advocate more strongly for that, but I don’t have the time or the energy. I have so many other things to do. I’ll leave that to someone else. Bobby is my first nominee for that position.
daves@news-banner.com
