Beech Tree News Network

If I have to remember to do one more thing this holiday season, my brain will explode.  It is not the doing of the thing that will make my brain explode, it is the looming reminders.  The dreadlines, you know, those deadlines you dread.  My Post-its now have Post-its attached to them.  

I have to take some responsibility for the overload.  It is at this time of year when I become overly “creative.”  I tell myself things like, “Mom would love it if I printed out pictures of all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and put them in a photo album for Christmas.”  Why I don’t think of gifts like this during the months of May or September, instead of during the second week of December is beyond me.  I try to tell myself to go with a more reasonable gift—a hat, scarf and glove ensemble would be nice—but like a petulant child, I will have none of it.

On Saturday, I decided to make two kinds of jelly, from berries I had in the freezer, as well as a dehydrator full of deer jerky.  I had promised my daughter and son-in-law some jerky way back last spring, and jelly makes such a good Christmas gift, I told myself.  Oh, and everybody loves my salsa, I could just whip up a batch while I’m at it. 

On Sunday after church, I finished jelly I didn’t get made on Saturday, and finished stringing Christmas lights on shrubs I didn’t get strung last Saturday.  I cut up chicken and potatoes while I cooked green beans for dinner, and finished laundry.  My daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were due at my house at five.  After dinner, I was exhausted.  It was at that point that I remembered two things: Psalm 131:1 and a customer I met at our shop last week.  

The writer of Psalm 131:1, said, “I do not involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me.”(New American Standard).  The problem is the things I do are not too difficult for me—at first.  Each one of the afore-mentioned things is doable, but as a collection, they suck my brains out, and make me feel like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat.

The customer I met last week wasn’t going anywhere for Christmas and had no one coming to his house either.  I thought about what that would be like, and it made me afraid of ending up like that.  I would rather have the chaos of my own life than have the loneliness of his.  It would be nice to have a nice patch of middle ground, but this is America, land of feast or famine.

Because I am one of those people who tries to get to the center of a problem, I asked myself why I put myself under this kind of stress during the Christmas season.  My husband and kids don’t do this to me.  My friends don’t do this to me.  And God certainly doesn’t expect me to run myself into the ground.  I can trace some of this breakneck speed during Christmas back to how my stepmom pushed herself around this time of year, but I think more than that, it is the loneliness I saw in that customer last week, the same kind of loneliness I had as a child, separated from the people who cared about me, that drives me.  Teddy Roosevelt said, “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.”  I think I must believe if I keep busy enough, the loneliness of Christmas won’t catch me.

So, if I just stop right now, in mid-sentence, will the world continue?  Of course it will. Eventually, all that stuff I dread will fizzle out to nothingness, and all that will be left is a flat line. 

 I remember, when I first met Garey, he used to say, “Well, what we don’t get done today, we can do tomorrow, and if tomorrow doesn’t come, it didn’t matter anyway.”  I am finally beginning to see the wisdom in that statement.