Tears & Laughter: The First Day of the Season of Excess

I’m sure I heard it somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Or maybe I read it. I don’t know. But for a few years now, when I think about the day after Thanksgiving – or Black Friday as it is more commonly known – I think about it being the first day of the season of excess. It, and the first day of the Christmas season, have somehow become one in the same.

Last year, things may have been less excessive because of COVID. This year, it could be less excessive because of the excessive amount of shipping carts stuck on ships off the coast of California. Or possibly less excessive because the excessive inflation and the cost of fuel. But I doubt it.

That seems to be a constant in our America. We tend to go overboard for Christmas. Whether with food, giving, going, traveling, or spending. We are all in.

It’s as if we have not resistance. Even if deep down we long for a more simple, slow, less stressed holiday.

I’m not sure why I feel especially festive this year. Which is absolutely crazy. So trust me I’m weighing that thought late in the night. Because there is also this undertone of sadness. Things aren’t the way they once were.

That is true for all of us one way or another.

Things aren’t the way they once were.

There are people that are no longer with us.

There are little people who are no longer little.

It is all normal and natural.

But…it’s still a little sad too.

Yet, I feel festive. Feel more festive than I’ve felt in years. I already have decorations placed throughout the house. Some of the decorations I have made using hot glue and various finds from Hobby Lobby. The eye can immediately pick these fine looking, hand-crafted originals out from the others decorations, but I have enjoyed making them. I…have enjoyed having the time to make them.

This is the last year anyone under 18 will wake up to run to the Christmas tree in my house.

Although already things are not the way they used to be.

And it’s not like I haven’t seen this coming.

She is the youngest of the five of them. I already know how the story goes. It is supposed to happen. It happens to families all over the country.

I guess that is not an entirely bad thing.

Nobody asks to sleep under the Christmas tree.

Nobody lurks around in the hall and in the corner of the living room trying to catch Santa Claus.

Nobody wakes up everyone in the house before daylight on Christmas morning.

So, it makes perfect sense for a mother to feel a little sad when we look back and consider all the changes life sends our way in such a few fleeting years when our children are growing up.

Of course, it also makes perfect sense for a mother to look back over all those years…and feel a little festive, too. It is the start of the season of excessive joy.