The Christmas Eve Column

 


      It's 2:51 PM. Santa is somewhere in Africa right now. Yule Log is not on yet. I'm not due anyplace for about three hours. I have just had a nice chocolate chip cookie. Time to write a column

   I spent the morning at my parents' house. They've just moved to a senior apartment about 15 minutes away from where I live. I try to visit them once a week as does my sister. Due to a falling out that happened about 16 years ago my sibs and I had not seen or spoken to each other until earlier this year. Now that our parents are getting older and needing help, we are tentatively starting to work together. It's awkward, but we are all trying.

   I think some healing is starting to take place. Slow healing, but healing nonetheless. That's all right. These things take time. I'm not sure if my siblings and I will continue to have a relationship with each other once our parents are no longer around, but I don't care. We are patching things up now and that's enough for me. 

   That's the best gift for me this Christmas. It isn't the things wrapped in bright paper. It the people who bring them. It's the people who text me and email me. It's the people who I keep track of on Facebook and my friends in Toastmasters. It's my coworkers past and present.

   It's Celine, Patricia, Helen, Lisa, Micki, Lynn, Ellen, Dana and Mary. All the friends I see and the one friend I see no longer. It's the people who like reading about Scamp and his adventures. 

   My friend, Ellen, strives to live a minimalist life. While I can't commit to tiny house living, (I have a lot of things that I like including a sizable yarn stash.) I do try to emulate her desire to fill her life with experiences, not things. In the end, that is what you can keep. It's what no one can take away from you. 

   I read someplace that people in hospice had been asked what they would do different if they could conduct their lives over again. Nearly all of them said they would cherish the people in their lives more. There is a lesson to be learned from that. To me, the best gift is time, not just at Christmas but all through the year.

Merry Christmas

from 

Sophie, C and Scamp

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