Thursday, December 04, 2008

The Ultimate Gift

Wow. I just re-read yesterday's post and realized it sounded like I wasn't happy about changing my name to Mrs. Dalton Gregory. Well, disclaimer time - I am very happy and pleased with my marriage. It's the bright spot of my life right now.

Fed up with the ongoing ridiculousness of my pay and hours at Walgreens, I submitted my two week notice at work yesterday. I didn't have a back-up plan, but I figured if I put my neck on the chopping block it would be a great motivator to find something else. Except they wouldn't accept my resignation. One of the managers talked me into staying a little while longer to see if we could work something out. Yippee-skippee.

My friend Lorna (see Lorna's Blog on sidebar) says she's not going to put up Christmas decorations this year because she doesn't have a husband and kids around and really doesn't feel like it, which is perfectly fine of course, but it got me thinking: If I were living alone, would I still decorate? It's kind of like that philosophy question, If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

Well, the tree still makes a sound, and I discovered that I would still decorate.

Working in retail and being super-saturated with all of the holiday merchandising could easily have caused me to become overwhelmed with the emptiness of it all, but instead it has served as an eye opener. Make of the holidays what you will, but I choose to see it as an opportunity to celebrate for four weeks what God has done for us. He has given us the ultimate Gift, hurray!!!

Let's wear jingly bells and have beautiful evergreens in our house and sing songs and enjoy each other!

Or, we can spend too much, focus on what we think everybody expects, and get miserable and exhausted.

Either way, it's our choice.

Stores are no more responsible for the over-commercialization of Christmas than guns are for killing people. Either one can be used as a useful tool or a weapon of misery. It depends on the person using them.

But I digress.

My point is this: Perception is everything. I am going to have a wonderful holiday season this year because I'm going to take the opportunity to use it as a reminder of the best gift I've ever been given. Unconditional love and reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ, my Savior.

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