Sometimes You Just Need a Little Noel

For two days in a row, I've come home feeling like I was beat to near death with a 4 X 4.  Not the Jeep type...the board type.  Well, maybe the Jeep type.  The end of the month at a mortgage company in my department is usually a veritable zoo.  The end of the month coupled with the end of the year...buckle up muchacho (or muchacha...I'm really not feeling like getting sent to HR for gender discrimination to top this week off).

OK, so my grand idea was that before the weather got bad this weekend (calling for ice again, yay), I'd get started on my Christmas shopping.  WHAT???  Christmas isn't until next Wednesday, right?  Today's the 18th...add 6, carry the 4, divide by 3...yeah, next Wednesday.  Plenty o time!  Got home tonight feeling like I had bruises on both sides of my head and said, 'screw it!'.  I'll go tomorrow.  I'd like to be able to say that I had my list all ready to go.  I'd like to say that I have a clue what I'd like to get everyone....I say this knowing that most of the people who will receive these thoughtful, heartfelt, and amazing gifts read this blog.  WHAT???  Sheesh, this is a rough crowd!

I typically have to wait until the last minute, because I'm one of THOSE kinds of Christmas gift givers.  Yep, I am soooo impressed with what I get that I want to give them the minute I get out of the mall.  What can I say?  I'm that freakin' good!  So I've figured out as time goes on that I can justify my procrastination in Christmas shopping with the rationale that I don't want to prematurely give those perfect gifts.  Yeah, that's it!  Then what would there be under the tree on Christmas morning...an empty tree with sad souls surrounding it saying, "what the heck??". 

It makes perfect sense.  Let's see...wait until closer to the end of the month when everyone at work wants a piece of you and you come home feeling like (and maybe looking like) a walker.  Not one of the mall type, but the Walking Dead type.  Wait until a handful of days before Christmas Day and go out with the hoards of other genius like-minded individuals who undoubtedly waited until the last minute for the same altruistic reasons that you have...should be good company, right??  Wait until the stores are busier, the shelves are fully stocked with the good stuff, the parking lots are stuffed, lines are long, people are on their best behavior, patient, kind, thoughtful...the streets are lined with people who wait their turn, using their turn signals....mmmm hmmmm.  You Black Friday shoppers think you're studs??  Be a part of the collection of foot draggers who are out 1-7 days before Christmas....WE'RE the studs!  It takes determination and skill to bring home those awesome, wonderful, heartfelt, special gifts to be carefully laid at the foot of that illuminated fake fir tree.  All of that without needing to post bail for and assault charge.  Now THAT'S love!

I was standing at my desk yesterday (standup desk) and had my earbuds in listening to Christmas music on Pandora hoping it would help lower my blood pressure a bit. I was bouncing back and forth between some old, OLD Christmas music, and some more contemporary stuff.  A series of events that afternoon had me so tense I felt like I could easily rip off someone's face.  I was feeling exasperated.  Just then, an instrumental version (piano) of "The First Noel" began to play.  Now I've heard that song a few times in my life by now.  Most of us know the words.  Unconsciously, the words were coming to mind as the beautiful piano piece played:

The first Noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepards in fields as they lay:
In fields where they lay a keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel Noel Noel Noel
Born is the King of Israel.

For whatever reason at that moment...I gained a little perspective.  On the first Noel (French for Christmas) God came to visit us in the form of a totally dependent infant into a pretty hostile world.  We weren't particularly kind to him, yet he saw fit to go through it all as one of us...FOR us.  And He did OK....handled it pretty well.  Kind of made the pissy moments of my day to seem not to be such a big deal.  It may actually keep at least half of a smile on my face as I join my fellow 'walkers' on their last minute foray into the melee of shoppers.  So...if you talk to me in the next few days, and I'm ranting about something...anything....just start singing the first couple of lines (OK...some of you need to stick to just quoting, I've heard you sing) of "The First Noel".  It's more kind than slapping me upside the head and telling me to shut up.  Merry Christmas, my friends!  FG

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