Christmas, while still a religious holiday in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, has always been a family affair in my life. For good or for bad, when I think of Christmas I think of family first and church activities second. There is a joy in giving gifts, of seeing someone's face light up when you get them something they want. The joy is especially great when it's a child's face breaking at the seams with excitement.

Cultural icons are a fascinating study. It amazes me how an idea or symbol can travel well beyond it's contextual borders and yet still convey something of it's original meaning. Take the White Christmas as an example. There exists, in my mind at least, this ideal that Christmas should be flocked with snow; this image is powerful enough that while my family sold Christmas trees years back, people were in the market for flocked trees, which were normal green trees painted white with fake snow.

I am getting older, for time now flies by and months fall off the calendar. I dare not think of what milestones await me around the next corner, but suffice it to say I'd love to find the pause button: I need to catch my breath. The last four months both crawled and flew by, proving that my perception of time is as firm as it has always been, which is to say, tenuous at best. Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day have all come and gone, and not all of them left pleasant memories.

In short, I've been feeling quite sickly all this time. A good portion of it has to do with the upheaval commensurate with a new job. I've gone on at length on my other blog about change, but to sum up, change brings with it a tremendous amount of stress. There is but one other time in my life that I have been as stressed, and that was the year I served as the Interim Pastor. Stress of this magnitude and this duration always makes me sick to my stomach all the time. As you can now well imagine the holiday feasts were no joy to me, but a chore in not embarrassing myself by publicly displaying what was previously in my stomach. To those poor souls who supped with me, this is why I was nowhere near cheerful.

The “bah humbugs” are about to begin, and my metamorphosis into Scrooge feels like it's coming on early this year. In an unexpected and crazy whirlwind of activity our home is beginning to take on the shape of a festive and lively abode for the good cheer of the season. Since we are hosting Christmas for both sides of the family this year we are feeling like we should make sure our home is cheery, festive, and painted.

The wall we took out is still not finished, though we are in the final stages. Before today we had the texturing left to do, then some painting, tacking down the ledges, and adding the trim work. We got the texturing done this morning, that is to say, we got most of it done. The ceiling still needed some mud work done to make it appear like it was a natural part of the ceiling, and not a lumpy, bumpy, cracked mess of wall compound. I spent more time on our step ladder bent over backwards, with my hands above my head, trying desperately to make the mud level and look something other than unnatural; I feel for Michaelangelo, though I'm sure he got to lay on his back while he painted.