Merry Christmas Eve...

"I have these presents to buy and I have to go to the grocery store and there's going to be lines out the door and I have to make cookies and I have to clean the house and... and I'm just so tired!!!" The weariness could be heard in my friend's voice as we talked on the phone.

"Hey," I tried to console.  "It's going to be okay.  What is really important?"

"What?"

"You're going to be together, right?  You're going to be with your family, and everyone's going to be together having a good time, and it really doesn't matter what presents are under the tree, or which cookies you forgot to make, or if there's six different side dishes.  What matters are the memories you're making."

"I know, but..."

"No buts.  Relax and go take a nap...  what doesn't get done probably didn't need to be done that badly, anyway."

This gets so busy.  SO BUSY.  And I've been busy too, rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off.  Woefully unprepared for our normal festivities...  I told a friend the other day that sometimes, on Christmas... while we're all running around like crazy people...  I imagine a young teenage mother... alone.  I see her sitting in a rocking chair, with her new baby wrapped up in a little blanket, just willing him to go to sleep.  Scared and confused, frightened by what she's done, overwhelmed by the responsibility she's suddenly taken on, and I want to whisper in her ear, "I think you're the only of us who gets it."

So tonight, as you're headed off to church, wrapping the last presents and putting the finishing touches on the pumpkin pie, as you wait for Santa and worry about who you might have forgotten, as you fuss over the ham and the stockings and worry about whether Uncle Bob will get in a fight with Grandpa Bert again...

Remember what's important about Christmas.

Relax and make some memories...