Chaos In A Bottle

For those of you who don’t know, and you must be a little isolated if that’s the case, Jenny of TheBloggess.com started what has become the most amazing outpouring of Christmas spirit I’ve ever seen.  I’m not going to relive the entire thing here, because Jenny has kept us all up-to-date with the avalanche of goodwill HERE.  I’m going to sit back and let you go read it, and then you can come back here.

Done?

Now, if that’s not the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen, if you can read that with dry eyes and not have your heart torn out of your chest and then put back together better, then you’re not human and I don’t want to know you. Really.

The fact that I was able to take some money that was literally sitting around (change, but it’s real money, yes?), put it in the bank and literally make Christmas happen for someone – not so much with the money, but with the fact that someone CARED enough to make the effort for a person they didn’t even know – has taken my Christmas and made it, well, MORE. More valued, more treasured, more peaceful, more sincere, just – MORE.

I know what it’s like to wonder where the money was going to come from for groceries, or bills, or to keep the lights on. I know what it’s like to lie awake at nights and wonder where the Christmas presents were going to come from for my girls. My husband is the hardest working man I’ve ever known, and the Economy of Doom has nearly taken everything from us; it’s because family and friends offered a helping hand when we needed it that we’re finally, maybe, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train. Full of zombies.

This year, we could pay it forward a little bit, and the funny thing is, it’s done as much or more for my Christmas spirit as it could possibly have done for the folks we were able to send gift cards to.

And – you want the icing on the cake? I told Bri about it, and she wanted to give a card, too. She’s a hard-working 15-year-old, and she makes her own money teaching violin classes. When we sat down with her debit card and the amazon.com gift card site, I went to put in the $30 – and she told me to make it $50. She said then there’d be a little extra for Christmas dinner. I asked if she was sure, and she just said “I can afford it”.

How many teens would have done that??

How have I, truly, become so blessed?

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Yeah, so I should have updated this a lot sooner, but I’ve had ebola the flu, so if you’ve got a problem with it you should come over here and let me cough on you so you can share my pain. Deal with it.

I’m TRYING to get into the Christmas spirit, but as you can imagine, the plague cholera the flu tends to put a damper on the holiday mood, as you can imagine. Or don’t imagine. I’m not sure I care at this point.

There is a tree. There are lights on the tree. My line of advent calendar boxes are strung between the living room and the dining room. There is, however, no candy in the boxes yet. Don’t judge me; have I mentioned I’ve got typhoid fever the flu?

There is also a bottle of Dewer’s, which everyone keeps telling me will help make me feel better, but all it does really is make me sleepy. That might be the reason my dude keeps making toddies for me to drink, now that I think about it, because if I’m asleep I’m not complaining about how crummy I feel and making demands for hot tea and chocolate. I just thought he was trying to take advantage of me.