There's Always Next Year

I finished the last of the Christmas shopping today. It doesn’t ever take much for me to shop for Christmas anyway, and I certainly don’t want to drag it out longer than necessary. So I went to the local Hastings and picked out something for my sister in Michigan that I thought she would like (but wasn’t on her list).
I bought my wife’s present some time ago. I was downtown and stopped at a store I had heard about in an advertisement on the local radio station. I’m not saying what kind of store because she knows about this blog, and I don’t want to give it away, although I suspect from the size of the box that she knows where I got it, anyway. Those two gifts, and I am finished.
Tonight we are sending out Christmas cards, complete with the required letter outlining all of the great and glorious things that happened to our family this past year. I was selected to write the letter this year, and hope I did well. I’m not sure anyone reads those letters. I read a few of the ones we get, but certainly not all of them.
In about 10 days, it will all be over. Christmas will have come and gone, the packages opened, gifts exchanged, cards read, and meals cooked. We Christians will think we have done our duty for yet another year as we remind ourselves that the real reason for the season is the birth of the Christ child, even as we practice our gluttony, satisfy our greed, and look forward with fear to the receipt of January’s credit card statements.
I rather suspect that God’s emotions this time of the year range from anger to sadness to laughter. I shudder to think that He may be laughing at my feeble excuses, angry with my bull-headedness, and sad that I just don’t get it. Maybe next year. There’s always next year. God, just be patient with me. I’ll do better next year.