"Grown Up Christmas List"

It's hard to wake up in the morning when all your radio station plays in Christmas Carols. Hard indeed, and yet well, well worth it.
This should be the time in my life when the holiday season means the least to me. I am in fact far too old to celebrate the traditions as a child and while it seems that many others who I knew in my youth have already begun, I have certainly not started a family of my own. And yet somehow as season passes into season, year passes into year, and college passes into "adulthood" (shiver) I perenially find myself warmed by the concept of Christmas and all it has to offer.
As if the actual, literal season could not come soon enough, even on a particularly and peculiarly warm late November evening, Christmas and all its sister holidays seem to bring light into not only nature's darkest days but the time that marks the end of one chapter, in this case 2005, and the slow, deliberate passage into a new one. The great abyss of each year bringing us closer to all that we have ever dreamed of as well as closer to our inevitable end of days.
So, it should be no surprise that on this last day of November, on the eve of our final and arguably most important month of the year, I find myself once again shocked at how excited I am for this season and all of its collective joy, stress, warmth and expectation. I gear up for the lists and gifts, as well as the pressure and fun of deciding just what to buy, craft or make. I eagerly anticipate once again returning home to spend what is sure to be an amazing week with my truly phenomenal family. And I even smile to myself at the thought of red scarves, green sweaters, the smells of pine, cinnamon, egg nog and the joy of discovering lights in unexpected places.
But much more shockingly than any of these usual feelings pre-conditioned in most humans since infant-hood is my over-whelmingly, almost frighteningly political correctness when considering the whole event. More so than my affinity for the story of the baby Jesus or my appreciation of the Festival of Lights (which we are often reminded, is what this is all about in the first place) is my hope for a unified sense of O.K.ness. That everyone finds their way Home, wherever that may be. That for a season or a month or for even just one day, this world and everyone on it can experience some semblance of peace. I've always considered myself quite spiritual, if not particularly religious, and perhaps this plays into that, but probably it does not. All I know is that the older I get, the bigger I dream. And this year, while my material wish list might be longer than ever, all my heart really wants on this December's Eve is certainly impossible. But maybe that's what this season is all about, the impossible occuring in our darkest and coldest of days. So I'm asking for it, please, in spite of everything.
Let this life turn out O.K.
for all of us.