Emmanuel

It's never good for me to decorate other peoples' houses before I gussy up my own. All the juice gets used up. I require male help getting the decorations out of the barn right now as well (that's from all those years of muling it myself, producing hernias and such). God gives that decorating bug to people, not everyone, mind you. I was a young gal when my Mama let me take over the tree decorating. It's an inborn, inherent knack for placing the goods in just the right spot on the tree, but apparently it can also be taught. I don't trust anyone to do it, however. Anyone. My MawMaw would say that's just pride, and it probably is. Even though there are those in the world that do it better than me, they're not here to do it, so I suppose I will labor at it until my pine-tar-sticky hands fall off. 

But not this year. Here it is, December 6, with only less than three weeks 'til Christmas and my house is still frumpy and undecorated. Last year it looked like the Christmas Bomb went off, even before Thanksgiving, with the tour of homes stopping here. Past years have always involved some sort of early event that forced my decorating hand. I do that, lining up company, events, extravaganzas in all areas of my life (not just Christmas), to keep me from being lazy. People always tell me that I need to cut back, but the inevitable thing that happens is that if I don't book myself uber-tight and keep ten plates spinning, then nothing gets done. It's sad that I wasn't born with a high degree of self-discipline. I have to hem myself in like a hog so I'll actually do things. Then I end up stressed or sick and miss my people. It's a problem. 

I think I'm Grinchy this year. That is a terrible thing to have to admit. Where are you, Christmas? I know where He is. Maybe I need to take a timeout and set down with Him a spell. Remember the Magnum Mysterium, think about the vortex of time, where He flung the planets across the Milky Way, where He saw and knew it all, from the first pinprick of creation, through the fall of man, to His grand plan to redeem a people for Himself. To think upon a star, signs in the sky, a king brought in the humblest of ways. God as man, the great mystery. Let us ponder...