Christmas is almost here...

Christmas is almost here...

I have made over 200 cards...

Decorated 2 trees...

Baked 7 kinds of cookies...

Listened to holiday songs for hours...

Bought gifts...and started wrapping them...

Told the Christmas story to over 30 kids with puppets and by reading Luke 2: 1-20...

All this and I still do not feel "'in" the holiday spirit...

This spirit has been lost to me for quite some time...5 years...

5 years ago I had to work on Christmas...and spend Christmas eve alone...

I was 23 and before then I had held on to my child like feelings about Christmas...

It was magical...

After working that day..2 hours from my family...the magic of Christmas died for me...

I realized that Christmas was just another day...

I haven't had to work that day since but, I have not felt the same since...

Now, Christmas seems to be another reminder of time's passing...

A reminder of yet another year gone by and no closer to being parents...

Another year with no toys for our children under the tree...

Just practical gifts under there...

No one to read the night before Christmas to...

No one at home to read the Christmas Story from the Bible to...

Yet as I sit here...I can't help but hope that next year will be different...

Maybe next year won't wonder if we will ever have toys under the tree...