Ba Humbug and all that Sickly Christmas Stuff

Laying down and listening to Fleet Foxes...feeling oh-so bad...sick. Just finished watching Serendipity in an empty house. Feeling lonely and awful and missing my girls as they enjoy family while I baste in my own poor health. TO add insult to injury, I was desperately hoping to add copious amounts of sweet and sincere musings to Zed's blog over these past few days and here I am wallowing more than blogging. Boo to me.

I can't help but sigh and feel fortunate despite the universe's best attempt to render me silent. My Mom even texted me tonight to tell me that "Slapshot" was on television, as if a little Paul Newman and all the vile hockey humor of my youth could make me feel better. That was sweet. Her own version of chicken soup, I suppose, and from such a distance as to render her helpless, but she tried anyway.

I wish I had the energy to type on and on about Zed's Christmas. Sadly, I don't. She had fun, lots of fun, and it was such a sweet thing to watch her, but this Christmas felt less like Christmas and more like hanging on to health just long enough to watch it escape. I think I learned a bit of a valuable lesson. It's a fleeting thing, Christmas is...so fleeting that it can pass you by if you're not paying the most absolute kind of diligent attention to it. I was not, and it makes me a little sad...or a lot. Of course, it's easy to feel a little sad when you're sick and home alone, and the wind is whipping outside. It's easy to feel bad if you want to.

I think what's most disappointing about the holiday so far is that I don't quite feel as though I've been the very best me that I could have been, and that isn't the kind of thing that's returnable. I feel like I might have given everyone I know an ugly sweater, or socks, perhaps...yes, maybe socks. Sometimes I think that the very best thing I have to give is my enthusiasm...my eagerness for everything, and this year a virus stole almost all of that. Ugh.

I promise to make up for it. I do. I've got time, a few days before school is back, and if I can wrestle some decent health out of the remainder of this week I promise to make amends. Strangely, this isn't the first holiday I find myself wishing for a do-over. I think that I love Christmas even if I'm not so very good at it. History has me failing in a fairly epic sense traditionally. I don't want to do that anymore. I think Zed had a great Christmas, but I feel as though I owe June and everyone else a much better effort. Flat on your back is no way to say I love you, unless of course, you're a teenage girl with no self-esteem or fatherly guidance. Let me shake this deathly feeling and take another run at the holiday. I'll do better next time around.