The Christmas rush is through....

Its over...both trees are already put away and all the wonderful decorations tucked away in my Christmas storage container.Yes, even the snowflakes that hung so beautifully from my ceiling are now gone. Now the might seem a little harsh from someone who LOVES Christmas, but I have to move on after Christmas has passed or I kinda get a little depressed about it. I use to get really sad about it when I was younger. Christmas is so awesome, special, and magical and then it’s just...poof!..gone. Furthermore, I start the Christmas Season the day after Halloween. I do this in part to get my fill in so by the time Christmas passes I am ready to move on. So this year and the last few I have started taking down my tree and decorations very shortly after Christmas Day. Not going to lie the past few days coming home and seeing an empty space where the tree once brightened the inside of my home has been a little sad. Also by doing this it makes it special to have the tree in my home. That way I still get excited to put it up again next year. Which by the way I’m already plotting my thoughts of how I am going to decorate it next year. Excited! =) 

So, mark it dude...another Christmas Season in the books. Another year I have survived working in retail during the holidays. Three decades of Christmases logged in the memory banks. OK well, I am sure I don’t really remember the first three or four, but nonetheless I have had a few Christmases in my life time. Some of them good and some of them not so good. As I think back through them all I remember more good than bad though. Even though during the many years my mom was married to her second husband every Christmas Eve they would fight. To me I still remember more of the good things that happened during Christmas time then the bad. In comparisons to some of the bad Christmases I have heard about through other people I know even my worse Christmas wasn’t that bad. I have been lucky to always have a job during the holidays. Enough extra to spread the love, money, and always had enough for food on the table. I hope that is how it will always be. My parents never had a lot per say, but were never quite poor either. I just always tried to be grateful for what I got. Thinking back now it was way too much. That is something about my mom that I love. She loves to give. Sometimes the gifts don’t quite match up, but you can’t deny the love and thought she tries to put into everything she gives. Because having a meaning behind the gifts you give is what matters. So that’s where I get it. To me giving any gift has to have some sort of meaning behind it. Maybe it’s just something you saw that made you think of someone. Maybe it’s something they have always needed. See I love to enable people to do things that they love. One year I finally bought my sister a sander. Do you know how many times I heard her say “Yeah I need to sand that down and refinish it?” Too many to count. So that was my gift to her to try to help her get to do some of those things she always wanted to do. Maybe its something you think this person should have and or know about. To show a person something new is truly a gift in life where we are constantly learning. From new music that might be right in tune with where they are or are going to in their life. I love giving books that help educate others. So I know there is a very commercial part of Christmas that I am not about. To me its a time of year to bring in cheer, light, and love in to the more dark days of the year. I happen to do that through gifts. Not because its a material thing, but because it’s an excuse to spend more energy on others than yourself. A super boost of giving if you will. I don’t just give gifts this time of year. Some of the best gifts I have given are for no reason. Random acts of kindness. I remember the feeling of warmth that passed over me the year I gave $50 dollars to the family we chose to support through work. I remember how good it felt to give to someone I don’t even know with no expectation of getting anything back and to people that had no idea that it was coming. To maybe make that time in their life just a little brighter. Sometimes all we need is to see just a little light at the other end of the tunnel. One smile to spark the love inside us. Remember we all in this thing called life together. =)

A few years ago my sister and I watched a movie that talks about the history of Christmas. It’s called “Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas” done by the history channel. I would suggest this movie to anyone that is looking to understand the holiday a bit more and find something in it that relates to you and why you may celebrate Christmas. For my sister and I it helped us stop focusing on it being such a religious holiday for neither of us are very religious. Because you will find in the movie that it talks about the fact that during this time of year there was celebrations of many kinds. Even before it became Jesus’s birthday. See the things that really spoke to me was bringing light into the darkest part of the year for a good portion of the planet, to celebrate family, and to give. There was many tries to cancel Christmas, but the people always made it happen one way or another. So after many years trying to reinvent Christmas for ourselves we finally had something to back our desire to do things differently and celebrate it in a way that makes more sense to who we are. So spend only what you have and make the money you spend worth it. I also have tried harder to make gifts for others. Don’t spend money you don’t really have. I have never opened a new credit card to make Christmas happen. I even remember the first Christmas I spent when I lived with my sister in the apartment we shared. We really didn’t have anything. I remember getting a few Christmas present for her and I did get a Christmas tree and that was all I really wanted for Christmas. So I did and I was so glad I did too. I love how a Christmas tree really warms my heart and home. To our surprise a few days before Christmas we received a big box in the mail from my mother who at the time was on the other side of the united states. She didn’t have much herself, but somehow put some money together and made it go farther by spending much of it at the Dollar tree. Man that made our Christmas. Even thought it wasn’t hundreds of dollars of presents it was still so nice to open stuff. Some of the presents we laughed and smiled at. Some of them we tried to figure out what my mom was thinking. Just so sweet of her and I have never forgotten how special that was to me. To be thousands of miles away and she managed to touch us. I still have a glass Christmas mug that I love to this day from that Christmas. My sister has the other one. I still love drinking egg nog out of that cup and is truly one of my favorite Christmas gifts. 

Why am I bringing all of this up you may ask. Well, I have been reflecting on the Christmas that just passed and I don’t know how the people at Hallmark draw up their idea of a “perfect Christmas”, but Christmas for me 2011 was one that I think really makes my idea of a perfect Christmas. It really started with the Monday after thanksgiving My Mom and Stacey went on a journey to get that perfect Christmas tree. It was a very beautiful day. Sunny and not too cold. We went to one of my mom’s friends  tree farms and found just a wonderful noble Christmas tree. Took it home and kicked of the Christmas season in the Heine house. Stacey made some of the most beautiful paper snow flakes I have ever seen. I am not just being bias each one of them was so creative and wonderful. Even when she said she was going to make them I had this idea of the crappy snowflakes I did as a kid. I mean now that I have seen her snowflakes mine definitely were very bad in comparison to hers.lol Having them hang down from the ceiling was something new and refreshing to add to my holiday decorations. I got to introduce her to some of the movies I consider classic Christmas movies. One of which was the History Channel’s movie I talked about earlier. 

Then midway through December we took on the task of making Dairy Free and Gluten free Christmas sugar cookies. Now, I am not going to lie our first attempt failed, but you know what it only made our second batch that much better. If you are reading this blog entry and you didn’t get any PLEASE don’t think that I don’t love you. Even after the 80 some cookies we made we didn’t have enough for everyone. Granted we ate a few ourselves because hey they were pretty damn good. One of my cooks at work called me a liar because she couldn’t believe that the sugar cookies were Dairy free and Gluten free because they tasted so good. I tell you what though it was so awesome handing them out to people especially the ones that didn’t know it was coming. The joy of sharing warms my heart. I love the reaction of one of my coworkers daughters who I sent home with some of the sugar cookies. She said “Oh mom that was so sweet of Derrick to do that. He is so cute and sweet”. She is adorable and constantly makes my heart smile. They are Muslim and don’t celebrate Christmas, but still enjoyed our Christmas cookies. See people it doesn’t have to be something that separates us. 

Also, the joy of going over to my buddy’s house and bringing his two kids one gift each. Again I didn’t have much, but I found two gifts that meant a lot to me to share with them. They are my kids until the day I have my own and I love them dearly. So then lets move on to Christmas Eve in through Christmas Day. So Christmas Eve at work is busy day, but always fun. I worked the holiday table and so I got to sit and just enjoy the day. Just watching our wonderful family we have at New Seasons smiling and joking around with each other. There was so many special moments from my assistant manager dressing up over the top festive, to my boss giving me his traditional handshake to say thanks for helping making it through another holiday season before he left, to one of the night crew employees I don’t talk to much come up to me and wish me a very merry Christmas and even sealed it with a nice hug. I wish everyday could be filled with this much love. There was even a mess up with a cake and I ended up giving the people who ordered the cake for free because of some mess up with the frosting. They tried to argue with me about giving it to them for free, but then they decided that instead of spending the twenty five dollars they would have spent on the cake they would in turn put that money towards donating to buy meals for those in need at the registers. Wow...that really moved me. Here I was doing the right thing for them and then they took it a step further by doing an even better thing. That was truly amazing to me. 

So after work I headed back to my house and did a few things before my brother came over for our annual Christmas Eve brother bonding time. We usually play any type of games from video games to board games. This year it happened to be a few video games that we could play together. Just so lucky to have my brother. Having him in my life means the world to me. We have been through some tough times, but I tell him all the time I am so lucky to have a brother as cool as him to have fun with in my life. So we played games and relaxed. After this busy holiday season it was just what I needed. We both couldn’t stay up as late as we wanted and we both started nodding off while playing video games so we decided to go to sleep. Then after hitting my snooze button quite a few times Christmas morning I got up a little after 8 am and tried to get everything ready to go over to my sister house the “Magic Cottage”. 

Along with presents I also had to bring many dishes. Because this year I decided to make breakfast for everyone on Christmas morning. My mom showed up shortly after 9 am and we all packed into my mom’s car and off we went. I did a good job on remembering everything except the last of our Christmas sugar cookies that I was going to take over to my sisters for my family to eat sometime during Christmas Day. Which I ate later on don’t worry. We showed up to my sisters and the fire was burning brightly and all of our stockings were hung on the fireplace with care. After a little of mingling I started in on my breakfast as the rest of the family played a game. My sister and I worked away in the kitchen. See every year my sister was the one making Christmas breakfast. This year it was my turn to do something for my family that I always wanted to which was make a wonderful dairy free & gluten free Christmas breakfast. So what was on the menu you may ask? Well, to please everyone I made both coconut egg nog French toast and cranberry pancakes. Also there was chicken sausage, turkey bacon, candied pork bacon, potatoes and eggs. It actually came together very well. My sister helped me when I needed it and was cleaning as we went. Also, my brother did an excellent job keeping everyone’s drinks full between hot chocolate and coffee. So when it was all done and ready to serve and as everyone started moving to the table I had a moment in the kitchen with myself. It was a moment that felt so good that I got a little teary eyed. It just made me so happy that I was actually making Christmas breakfast for my family. It was also Dairy-free and Gluten Free, but everyone still enjoyed it. Words can’t really explain what that meant to me. Just a wonderful moment in my life. As I sat down and started to eat, my brother teased me about not talking a pic and posting it on Facebook like I always do with the other meals I make. So I took a second to take a picture of my masterpiece and posted it on Facebook. Also, my grandmother’s boyfriend sitting to my right leaned over and said during the meal “So when are you making this breakfast again?” lol. I replied “You are going to have to wait a whole year.” ;-) The meal was excellent and it was nice to put food in my stomach since I was living off hot chocolate up until then.

 After breakfast we headed over and went through our stockings which since they had been hung by the fireplace that was burning very well had melted a good portion of the chocolate that was put into them lol...oops. Then the presents where passed out and like most Christmases I was blown away with how much was passed out. So many awesome presents. There was a few repeats of presents, but actually that worked out later on, but I will get to that in a minute. Now thinking about all the Christmases I have had with my family I have always felt like I can always be myself and expect that to whoever I share that day with. I couldn’t imagine having a stressful and rigid Christmas. For my families Christmases are full of joking around and laughter. Something else I noticed this Christmas was the strong connection with my siblings. I know that one day we might have families of our own and such, but I really don’t think that will really change how we spend Christmas together. I really couldn’t imagine spending Christmas without them honestly. This year we even had my grandma with her boyfriend Hal to spend Christmas with. Also my aunt Natalie with her boyfriend Pete showed up later in the afternoon after visiting her own children for Christmas. 

Now here comes an awesome story of how cool my family is. So after all the present were opened we were sitting back relaxing, still digesting our wonderful breakfast, and trying to decide our next move. When we asked my mom when Aunt Nat and Pete were going to be showing up. Somewhere in that conversation she brings up that My Aunt bought presents for all of us. All I could hear was the sound of tires screeching to a halt. We all sat in silence for a second...then my sister starts saying “What?! I didn’t buy them anything! They didn’t fill out the Christmas survey we had put on the “Christmas at the Magic Cottage” event page on Facebook!”. Of course we all started saying the same thing. We all thought she was just going to stop buy later in the day. We all looked at each other and what happened next was awesome. We all started looking at our own presents thinking what we could give up. My sister started looking around her house for extra things she had or gotten from vendors through her work. Now we could have just sat there and just been okay with not getting Nat and Pete anything for Christmas and I am sure they still would have loved us just the same or we could go into Christmas crisis mode and make something happen. Well, you know what we chose to make something happen. It was awesome to see my family work the way they did. Through a few duplicate presents and things my sister had including a portrait of My siblings and myself that we took for my mom and grandmother we did a great job. So, when they finally got there later in the afternoon and we had them open all the gifts before we told them the story of the family Christmas miracle. All the while all of us giggling under our breathe with each present they opened. Then when they had no presents to open we told them the story. My Aunt and Pete were so surprised that we put it all together shortly before they got there. That is the Christmas spirit if I have ever seen it. 

By the way the gifts She and Pete came up with were awesome and so thoughtful. For me they painted a wooden stand sign thing that said “kiss the cook” which my brother read wrong as I was unwrapping it. Which got us all laughing when he said what he thought it had said instead of “cook”. lol Oh man I haven’t laughed that hard for a looooong time. That alone made that gift priceless. After that we all played Bingo were my aunt and my sister won most of the bingo prizes. I did manage to with an awesome Christmas decorative snowman that I can’t wait to use next year. Kudos to my mom for the sweet bingo prizes. Then after that my grandma and Hal left and then shortly after so did Nat and Pete. Which my aunt kept winning at bingo so we were going to kick her out soon anyway. lol So the rest of us played one of the games I got for Christmas from Erica called “5 Second Rule” which has nothing to do with the 5 second rule for food dropped on the floor. lol It was pretty fun, but would be better played at a party with more people. After that we all headed our own ways. I wanted to keep going as I think we all did, but we all were so tired. I love my family. 

All and all it couldn’t have been any better of a Christmas in my opinion. Even the mistake of not getting gifts for my Aunt and Pete turn out to be quite a memorable event that I won’t forget. The beauty of just people loving people. So what ever your holiday means to you is fine. You can make it be anything you want it to be. That goes for life in general actually. My coworker doesn’t celebrate Christmas because it’s tied with the birth of Jesus. I told her it can be whatever you want it to be. I do not celebrate Christmas for Jesus’s birthday at all actually. For even if I did celebrate his birthday he wasn’t really born in December anyways.lol I use the Christmas season to love everyone around me. From family to friends to anyone I encounter. Life is about connections. Christmas 2011 will go down as one of my favorite Christmases and one that the people at Hallmark couldn’t recreate if they tried. Christmas with my family has always been priceless. Thank you for reading and I hope you made the best of your holiday. Till next year Happy Holidays.

As always I bring this to you with love and pure D-lite. =)

As a little extra here is my sisters cat Ellie passed out midday from all the excitement of Christmas morning. Soooooo cute! =)