You Gotta Make Magic Happen

If you can only get into the Christmas Spirit when there is a pile of snow everywhere you should be feeling pretty merry right about now, at least if you live in the Maritime corner of Canada.

Christmas is for giving and sharing and loving and let's face it, this year I am alone. The kids are with their dad and there is no special someone.

Since winter sports are what make winter enjoyable and are only possible with a lot of snow, I can understand where these snow lovers are coming from. Besides that there are few things as beautiful as quietly-falling, glittering snow. If that sight is not a bit of magic, I don't know what is...but for me (and I imagine for many) really, truly, absolutely getting into the Christmas spirit is a combination of many things. It is like a chemical formula or witches brew: if the right ingredient is missing, it just isn't the same.

Most of what is missing in my life is of my own creation, the bottom completely fell out of my motivation at some point in November and it has been a real effort to get it back.

I have taken time to include several of my preferred ingredients for the recipe of Holiday Spirit but there are several missing as well...The tree is up. Presents are wrapped. Everyone is bought for. I feel particularly good about some of them. Bills are paid. Snow is blanketed upon Freddy Beach.

Then there's the missing list: haven't sent cards again yet. My kids won't be with me that special morning. Santa won't be coming to my house. I still have to finish truffles, shovel myself out, get last ingredients for baking, pick up the gift tags, and visit Nanny (probably how I should have planned my evening anyway but didn't). I am sad to report that I didn't do as well in the last 2 weeks of school as I had been all along and therefore disappointed a few people (especially myself).

Trying hard to get that sparkle, that magic back. My life has shown me that wishes do come true but we don't get full appreciation of them without a little effort on our part. Sometimes a lot of effort.

These last days of 2009, I am looking backwards and forwards, inwards and out, formulating my resolutions for a better year to come.

2010, by next week, I will be ready for you!