A not-so-hectic holiday

Hello, my dear readers, and merry Christmas!  I'm sure you're as excited for December 25th as I am.  Unfortunately, it's easy to lose sight of the wonder of Christmas in all the hustle and bustle of making sure everything is perfect.  As a perfectionist (and an overachiever), I completely understand.  I'm currently in the process of crocheting an afghan, and today I found in my almost-finished masterpiece an extra hole that's not supposed to be there.  (God's healing my perfectionism, so I'll just crochet over it.  No one will know the difference!  *Insert evil laughter here....*)

"It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you!"
Unfortunately, laughing like Yzma and quoting Disney movies doesn't solve all the world's problems, especially around Christmastime.  It just takes your mind away from the fact that you need gifts for your hard-to-please siblings and your grandpa who never needs anything.  What to do, what to do....
It's about enough to drive anyone batty.
Kind of like Yzma.
This Christmas, I challenge you to unwind a bit.  Listen to "Carol of the Bells," have a snowball fight, decorate cookies with friends and family and enjoy it.  You're not going to remember this Christmas because the garland on your tree was perfectly twisted, or because you had the most lights on your roof.  You might even forget the perfect present.  What matters most is the time you take to spend with your family and with Jesus, the real Reason for the season.
My most memorable Christmas wasn't the one three years ago, the one I spent crocheting my parents an afghan.  It wasn't the year I got the American Girl doll I'd been wanting for months.  Really, it's all the years--helping my mom in the kitchen, visiting with family, decorating the Christmas tree.  Acting out the Christmas story with candles at my grandparent's house, like we do every year on Christmas Eve.  God bless you this holiday season, and remember--it's the little things that make a memory.

--Quote and picture from Disney's The Emperor's New Groove.