Christmas and Growing Up

So it has come to my attention that Christmas is less than two weeks away. Crazy huh? I've made an observation over the last few years, it seems that as we all grow older Christmas grows with us. When you're a kid you count down every second up to Christmas morning, but these last couple years it has almost caught me off guard. Especially since both this and last year I've had an exam less than a week before Christmas, it's a little hard to get into the spirit when you become more concerned with all the terrible things we as humans have done to the earth and each other, thanks Anthropology.

I've told myself that this is why I don't seem to be as excited about Christmas as the years go by. I'm just too busy with school to really enjoy the holiday, makes sense. But maybe I'm just outgrowing Christmas in general. When you're a kid it's just so easy to love Christmas. Any day you got a present was your favourite day. It could be a completely arbitrary day in the middle of August, if you got a present that day, it was your favourite day.

Any Christmas special can tell you the meaning of Christmas, but the more important question is what it means to you personally? When I was young, it was the day my brother, my sister, and I, woke up way too early and sat on our couch and waited for our parents to get up. As the years went on eventually we stopped waking up so early, and it came to the point where we all started getting up at the same time. Does this mean that Christmas means less to me or that Christmas just means something different. I recently enjoyed the Community Christmas Special in which the meaning of Christmas was the belief that Christmas had a meaning. The belief that it isn't just another day.

I like that meaning. I think it becomes even more about our personal interpretations of Christmas as we get older. Like I said earlier, as a kid if I walked out into the living room on a regular Wednesday and found a bunch of presents, I'd be just as happy as I would be on Christmas. If that happened to me now, sure I'd be happy, probably more confused, but it certainly isn't the same as Christmas.

As we grow up we start to care about different things. Maybe we realize that superficial goods don't buy happiness, or maybe we can just afford to buy our own happiness. Maybe we start to realize the importance of family. It's a lot easier to appreciate the time you have with family when you don't see them every day. These last few Christmas's have been a transitioning for me. I started realizing that the presents are no longer the most important thing about Christmas, it really is family. All the Christmas specials were right.