Enough?

Does anyone else feel unsatisfied every Christmas?

I'm not talking about not getting the right gifts...

I always feel like I should've listened to more Christmas music.  Sure, I listened to the radio station that plays it 24 hours a day, but what about my CD's? There's always at least five I didn't listen to.

I always feel like I didn't enjoy the Christmas movies when they were playing, enough.  Did we watch them all?

Could we have driven around and seen more lights?

What about the mall? We didn't even walk around to see and feel all the coolness of the holiday decorations and excited shoppers.

Not to mention, we missed the parade, this year.

Why do I always feel this way come Christmas day? I have several Christmas books I didn't even read.  I didn't do enough Christmas-y crafts with my kids.  Sure, we cut out snowflakes, we made snowmen (twice), we even did a Nativity scene family activity.  We went sledding.  But we didn't make the gingerbread cookies I said we'd make... We forgot the tradition of letting our kids pick out their own cereal for Christmas morning.

Christmas fail? I hate feeling like it was.

This holiday season, we've had the opportunity to serve and be served.  We got to show our children how wonderful it is to give of ourselves, and we were so blessed to be the recipients of such blessings.  We DID go sledding.  We DID read the story of the first Christmas in the Bible.  We DID spend time together as a family.  We DID have the tree and presents and saw SOME lights, and even started a new tradition for the month of December.

Fail? No.

Was it enough? Is it ever? I'm so grateful for the promise of a new year and new opportunities to do fun things with our family all throughout the coming year and for the wonderful repetitiveness of the holidays.  I'm grateful for new beginnings and bittersweet endings.  I'm grateful for this life and all it has to offer.  I'm grateful Christmas comes every year; that holidays come and go; that memories are made; that we always have the opportunity to do it better; to live more fully, to learn and grow and be.

What a wonderful time of year this is.

So, here's to cramming in just a few more movies and listening to the same songs until you're sick of them.  Here's to the lights and sounds and smells and fun of this time of year.  Here's to being with family and friends and eating food you normally wouldn't eat and doing it all over, again, next year.

Here's to Christmas.  :)