The Christmas Basket Case

By golly another year has flown by so quickly that it seems I'm still trying to get the same gifts that I was last year. Every year I think I'll have plenty of time to get into the 'Christmas spirit' and buy the most carefully  picked, personal and appropriate gifts for family and friends, and every year, I forget what I had thought of getting them, and of course find that my budget allows no such expense anyway.

This year we seem blessed with a beautiful yet modern-day-traffic-paralytic snow white landscape. One that Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and only those in the 'olden days' seemed to have had, and so inspired their cosy holiday Christmas tunes.

As traditions go, I seem to have a 'thing' with my Christmas tree. It's a fake one, about 12 years old and even though I still treat it lovingly, I think it's fed up with me and my decor. We seem to get along so poorly that for the third year in a row now, I've had to decorate it and redecorate it at least twice before we even reach Christmas Eve. Trouble is, it's not very stable, adding to that, that I insist on putting it into a 'proper' decorative basket, for it to look its part, so it stands unstable and topsy-turvy and of course always ends up taking a dive !!! 

I have cried bitter tears over this, for I have felt it to be a personal failure and lack of girl power. Still, I refuse to let this tree spoil my holiday season by tumbling down every single time on me. It's as if it wants to tell me, that it's useless to keep the decorations up, that if I don't properly position it and support it, no matter how gorgeous I make it look, it won't stand. Basic rules I suppose, which apply to anything and everything in life. So why do I keep on stubbornly stuffing this tree in the same basket for going on 12 years now ?! And why did it stay standing all those first years ?!

I guess we need to lay a good foundation to build upon, and I just simply haven't done that yet. I keep wanting to use parts of the 'old stuff' (read: basket/broken foundation) to rebuild, and I think that every year at Christmas time, the poor tree is trying to make a point.  And so, for yet another year, the tree has been done up twice already, and still, it leans towards 'a fall', something that seems unavoidable still.

I guess my Christmas wish for this year is that we all find that which we need in order to stay standing, to overcome, to prevail, to succeed and most of all to truly and triumphantly stand tall and sturdy, in order to carry our life and all its ornaments with pride and glory. May this next year bring us the tools to do just that, and in the meantime, please pray with me, that this year's tree remains poised for just that little bit longer...