Notes from a Christmas not happened yet...

It's 4 hours and 42 minutes until Christmas officially kicks off...yet, as soon as Christmas begins, it begins to end. Deep, right? Right. Emotional even.

Christmas is all about the season, not about the day. I think it's why I get depressed the second I open my first gift. I get great stuff for Christmas every year. There are 2 people in my life that literally give the best gifts ever: my mom and my brother-in-law. Every year, they give gifts that fill your whole body with warmth and entertain you for days, months and beyond. They're quite good at it. Case in point: this year I asked for an elephant for Christmas and the brother-in-law came through. I got an elephant...on a beer cozy. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving, right?

I totally got sidetracked...I always get depressed right when I open that first gift because, to me, Christmas is all about the anticipation of everything. The TV shows, the vacations, the gifts, the SPIRIT, all of it. I get depressed because the second that first gift is over, there is literally less than 24 hours left on that clock and everything goes back to normal. People have to go back to work the day after, the lights come down, the trees come down and it's just pretty depressing.

But then again, if you open gifts on the 23rd, like I did this year, you kind of get a few more days to bask in the glory of it all...and that I did today with this year's gift.
The wife came through with this...nice work! It's almost like I told her what to get me and she did. Then again, that's exactly what happened. It was for the best. I had no one to hang out with today, so I set this sucker up and went to town. I put the flags up in a repeating pattern and on the part of the track where the cars always fall off, I put the flags at half-mast.

A man once told me you know you're getting old when all of your gifts are clothes. I was 9 at the time and totally paranoid that I was old because I got a sweater for my birthday. Since then, I've vowed to myself to not let that happen. I always ask for some sort of toy from Santa every single year and it totally works for me.

So I say for this year, no matter where you are, what you're doing and who you're with, have a great Christmas, take in the spirit of the holiday and don't get saddened 10 minutes into December 25th. That last one was for me, but the rest is for all. Merry Christmas, Happy Festivis and pray for my cars and drivers who fall off on the corner with flags at half mast.