Is it just me, or does it get harder to really get in the Christmas spirit with each passing year? As a kid, I remember starting to get excited about Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving was over and we had picked out and decorated our tree. The annual picking of the tree tradition never failed to get me in the holiday mood. My family would go to the same vendor every year; they always set up shop in the big grassy area across from the Catholic high school. Seeing all the trees in rows, seeing all the decorations that were available, seeing the wreaths...it was magical. There was always Christmas music playing overhead, and my little brother and I would scamper around the trees playing hide and seek/tag while mom and dad tried to find eligible trees that fit both our criteria and our budget. Not too tall but not too short either, not too skinny but also not wider than our family room, no exposed spots anywhere on the tree, the usual. After a while, my brother and I would wander back to them and give our opinion on the trees. Of course, what did we really know about which trees looked good, and which ones didn't? Once we (just the parents really) picked a tree, we'd tell one of the guys in charge which one we wanted, we'd bring it over to the "packaging" table and it would get wrapped in mesh to prevent branches and needles from going everywhere. The guys would help my dad put the tree on the car, and they'd tie it with green twine that smelled like Christmas. We'd drive home, Dad would put the tree on the tree stand (after we all struggled together to get it into the house without damaging anything or anyone), and we'd turn on our $5 Christmas Classics CD to set the mood as we decorated the house.

I don't know when that magic started to wear off, and I don't remember when we stopped going to that vendor to get a tree, but now it seems like the rituals and traditions just aren't as magical anymore. We get our trees from Food Lion now, because they actually have decent trees for $20-$30...but they're not lined up in rows, they kinda just lay against the outer wall of the store until someone stands one up to see how it looks. There's no Christmas music playing as you peruse your options, and you have to bring your own twine/rope to secure it to the top of your vehicle. Sometimes both my brother and I are home to go pick out the tree with our parents, but with differing college schedules, my work schedule, and living in different states, it doesn't always happen. If we do happen to all be together when we get the tree, it's pretty likely that one of us will have to head back to school right after, so decorating the tree isn't a full family affair anymore.

This is the first year that I don't get a full Christmas break. I'm in grad school, so I have a break from academics, but I work full time as an ICU nurse....on night shift. Suffice it to say, I don't really get to go home for that full Christmas break. Thankfully, I can go home for about 5 days, and spend Christmas with my family, but it's still different from spending the entire month of Christmas break at home. Considering that I really do enjoy my job, and I'm getting paid to do what I love (shout out to those three years of free labor in nursing school clinicals for making me appreciate each pay check), it's a worthwhile trade..and it's one that I kind of have to get used to. But even during nursing school, it seemed like I never really hit the Christmas mood until my family went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. Hearing Christmas music for a month straight kind of desensitizes a person (even more so if you work retail and you're stuck listening to the same songs over and over), so I feel like it gets really easy to want to change the channel to something non-Christmasy every now and then. But Christmas Eve services are different.

Maybe it's the candles, or maybe it's sitting down for an hour and a half and listening to a story you may have heard many times, but something kind of magical happens on Christmas Eve. Call it cognitive reframing of sorts, your brain starts to remember that there's more to Christmas than shopping, trees, decorations, and Christmas music. It's kind of like how the Grinch realized that taking away the presents and the decorations didn't stop the Whos from having Christmas in Whoville. Sometimes the magic goes away for a little bit, and all it takes is one simple message to make you remember that Christmas is more than stuff.

The Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags! And he puzzled three hours, til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"