Christmas 2004 is almost upon us....

I am trying to get into the Christmas spirit and for some reason it is just not working.
I am not sure WHAT the "christmas spirit" is supposed to be per sae or HOW to find it but I feel that it must have something to do with a feeling of JOY and PEACE and HAPPINESS.
One of the things about growing up into an adult is that you find out that Santa Claus really is not the magical fellow that the weatherman always finds on weather radar each Christmas Eve as he is making his way from the North to the South giving the hope filled children a reason to go to bed. Now I know that the reason that the parents want the children to go to bed is so that they can put together all those hard to configure toys and finally go to sleep themselves before being awakened by the kids bouncing off the walls.

I suppose that since the magic is gone for me that atleast my children can enjoy as much of the Christmas season that is possible. Justin at the age of 9 and Kristina at the age of 12 understand that there is no St Nick and that mommie and daddy had a rough year financially and thanks to Food Lion they will actually have a Christmas gift under the tree.
I am glad that this is possible but I HATE the fact that our kids are getting Christmas because of HDST and Food Lion. I am hopeful that mom and dad can have a much more propserous New Year in 2005 and that we can find ourselve able to play Mr and Mrs Claus next year.

I am very thankful that while I might not find myself eaten up with the Christmas spirit I still have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful that God is still God and that He is still in control of our ultimate destiny. I am glad that our family is in good health, together under one roof and that we are able to enjoy the basic needs of life which is a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food for our stomachs and a place to lay our heads at night. Once you get past the basic needs everything else is icing on the cake. Unfortunatley we live in a day and age that determines our worth and our happiness by how much junk we can accumulate and how much fun we can have. We find ourselves comparing one another with one another and falling miserably short in some areas and feeling like failures. If you never compare yourself to your neighbor or co worker and wonder why you have not achieved what they have or dont have what they have or look like they do then you are doing better than most folks. I sometimes find myself doing just that and it only causes me to be down in the dumps and feeling puny. So, instead of looking without I will chose to look within and just be thankful for where we are at.

The first two quarters of this year sucked financially but somehow we managed to survive it. October finds me with a better job in the I.T. industry which certainly took a LOT of pressure off the budget and still playing a major game of catch up. The year 2005 will find me filling my tiny little brain with semi useless computer jargon, acronyms and technology tidbits so that I can obtain little pieces of paper that show folks that I know NT stands for Nuclear Tomatoe. LOL... In the month of January I hope to take my A+ certification test and hopefully pass it the first time. The Network + will follow and then I will be diving off into the world of Citrix and Microsoft Server 2003. I just hope that I do not fry the last brain cell I have left. LOL...

Katy and the kids are on vacation until afte the 1st day of 2005 and I will probably plug along and not get any time off thanks to most of the holidays falling on the weekend anyway. The nice thing about that is that things have been a tad bit slow for me at work which has allowed me to catch my breath and do some studying.

My hope, wish and prayer for you is that you will take the time in the next four days to sit down and appreciate where you are at in life. If you have family take the time to reaquaint yourself with them. Sit down and talk to them, hug them and let them know that you appreciate them for who they are. Get in touch with long lost relatives and wish them a Merry Christmas. Yes, I know, people are not perfect and we all have to deal with our good and bad side. Just figure out a way to overlook the bad and highlight the good in the folks around you. Everyone will want to feel loved and appreciated this season and as I have said before this is not a happy time for everyone. There are folks out there that do everything that they can just to survive the holiday season. So, if you know someone that needs a friend and for someone to show that they know they are alive try to be that someone.

Happy Holidays and God bless