Christmas.

The older I get the less like Christmas Christmas feels. Am I too old to feel the magic of Santa and reindeer and giving and...mistletoe? Am I too harried to focus on nativities and sacrifice and the miraculous birth of not just a child, but a power - a force for redemption?

I listened to Christmas music as often as possible. I excitedly wished "Merry Christmas!" to people I met. I looked forward to the time when I would be with my family.

And yet...Christmas came too soon. By the time I realized the need to bask in the glow of yuletide cheer, it was upon us and past us and hadn't quite found its way into me. Per tradition, I hung my collection of homemade and gifted ornaments on our tree of misfit decorations. It doesn't look pretty but it does look like home. I wrapped presents and placed them under the tree. We stayed up late Christmas Eve, a sheet hung over the opening to the family room where my parents were playing at Santa Claus. And this year, as if to prove that we are now too old, my parents woke US up that special morning. We abandoned hope of fitting all 10 of us in my parent's queen size bed - these days it just turns into a violent wrestling match anyway - and gathered in the kitchen instead. No Christmas socks, no lining up from youngest to oldest on the stairs, no stockings hanging over the fireplace. Just a cinnamon roll and an attempt at ceremoniously removing the cotton barrier.

The rest of the day was spent in holiday carefreedom. Playing games, sharing presents, avoiding responsibility. Something I've been doing for the past week and a half. It turns out that when there aren't looming obligations, responsibility is shirked absolutely. I need to order textbooks, apply for scholarships, respond to emails, take a shower, post on my blog... It's as if all of that belongs to a world that isn't mine anymore, a world that exists half a country away. A world I return to on Friday. Somehow two weeks just doesn't seem long enough to have fully recovered from this past semester of school. A semester that almost broke me. But that's in the past now. Now it's Christmastime and I've got to make the most of it.