The air has been let out

I love Christmas time. As a child, I would be on pins and needles all through the month of December aniticipating the big day. As Christmas drew closer, I could feel the anticipation growing more and more each day. Then Christmas Eve came and of course we would go to bed early, but could hardly sleep because of all the excitement, and it seemed like just when I would finally fall asleep, my brothers would come in and wake me up telling me Santa had come. We would race out to the living room and gaze at the scene before us, wide eyed and now fully awake.

Each of us would have our own separate piles laid neatly next to our Santa gift. The stockings bulging with oranges and candy(Somehow, the orange never got eaten, just the candy, crazy to me now, because I love oranges) We would then take turns opening all of the gifts under the tree and spend the next few hours happily enjoying our new treasures. But it always seemed to me that as the day went on that it was just over. Like all of the air had been let out of an extremely large balloon, and we were just left with the limp old flat balloon. Every year that feeling seemed to grow even larger.

Now that I'm a parent, I still feel the excitement of Christmas, but it's more for the excitement and the wonder I see in my childrens' eyes as they wake up Christmas morning. As I sit wrapping their gifts each year, I can picture their individual reactions and the joy in their voices as they run into the room.

Yesterday morning was like many other Christmas mornings. The kids ran in and were delighted to see that Santa had indeed found them at Grandma's house instead of our own. You can just feel the excitement in the air as everyone awaits to open their gifts. We all took turns(youngest to oldest), and Hannah had fun "playing Santa" passing out all of the presents. At one point, as she was passing out gifts to her cousin Samantha, she looked at Samantha's pile, and said,"Wow, Mantha you must have been a really good girl this year!" I loved sitting back and watching all of this.

The kids had a great time and played all day long with only a few scuffles over new toys. It's bound to happen when you have five kids under 7 in the same house! But once again I was left feeling like the air had been let out of my balloon. It's just over. Why is that? I have my own theory of course. I think it's because I don't focus enough on what I should be focusing on at Christmas. I sat back yesterday and tried to think of how many times I had thought of Jesus Christ in the last three days, and it made me sad to know that it wasn't near as many times as it should have been.

Although there was one moment that I felt a little better about it all. On Christmas Eve, during family prayer, Hannah prayed that we would have a good Christmas, that we would all go to sleep right away, and that we would all remember what Christmas is really about and remember Jesus.

So that's my resolution for next year, to try to focus it all more on the Savior. Maybe then I will feel like the balloon is still full long after Christmas has come and gone.