Christmas is just around the corner

So Christmas is nearly here.  Frankly I'm too tired for it to register really.  Totally cream crackered.  The last couple of days at work haven't been heaving but just the constant level of everything and the stress of trying to keep on top of it all.

We had the staff meal the other night and that was a good opportunity to let my hair down.  Now that I live locally and I don't have to drive I can actually have a drink without having to count units.  Only problem was trying to keep my mind (and eyes) in the right place.  Really not easy - why does it have to be this difficult?

Anyway, I've just about  reached my limit for energy right now.  If I am being honest I am not really in the mood for tomorrow night (invited out for the evening) but I guess I will be fine once I am actually there and things are going on.  I really don't want to go out con Christmas day though.  I just want to be at home and sleep.  I know that I have to go and see the remains of the family but I am not sure that I really want to.. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I can be really quite unsociable when I reach a certain point of tiredness.  Im not the most outgoing person at the best of times but there are certain things that just make me want to shut up shop and head inwards.  It's probably best to force myself not to but it feels like the instinctive thing to do.

Right now all I really want from Christmas is a long time in my own bed, a nice meal and a bottle of wine.  Don't thing much of that is on the cards really.  Frankly I hate the idea of going away at Christmas.  Used to hat it as a child, still hate it now.

I remember when I was really young, like four or five, I used to spend Christmas up at my Grand parents house in Oxford.  We used to travel up on Christmas eve.  Once we got there I would go out into the large garden, looking for twigs to help start the log fire for the evening, or possibly up onto Shotover Hill into the woods.  Once the fire was lit we were all in the main living room area and I remember it being warm and cosy.  Eventually at night I was packed off to bed.  Mum and Dad would eventually follow.  I would then be woken up again by them leaving for midnight mass, falling asleep for a while, and then being woken by them coming back again.  The room I used to stay in was a strange one, it had thin, rectangular fanlight windows along one wall, almost at roof level, and the first I knew of them coming back was seeing the car headlights glance through them.  At that point I just remember waking up on Christmas day, usually to the sound and smell of food being prepared.  Grandpa and I used to check through the fine ashes to look for embers from the night before and use these to relight the fire - I don't know how that started, probably my curiosity, but it became a sort of ritual.  At that point, everything revolved around the living room and the kitchen area, usually with me being accused of getting in the way.  There were usually other family members, Aunts, Uncles coming by after Church, never a quiet moment.  At the time it felt like an upheaval.  Now it seems like the golden age, representing everything that I wish Christmas could still be for me, and bringing a tear to my eye when I fondly remember those who have passed.  Infact, there's hardly any of the family left at all.

I know that the Lord must call us all home eventually, and those who are called should be remembered fondly and not mourned but this is really getting to me right now.  I can remember exactly how it was, how the people were back then, the way I want to remember them, and for all the fond memories, I cant help but cry because they are gone.