A Change of Heart

Well Valentine's Day has come and gone.  I never liked Valentine's Day.  I thought it was an over-commercialized,  non-holiday, it didn't come with any time off from school or work, so what was the point.  But I've had a change of heart.  This year, I really enjoyed Valentine's Day.  I made Valentine's cards for her daycare classmates and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for the parents and teachers.  And I was excited about this!

In fact, since Leah arrived, I've started to like the smaller holidays more and the bigger holidays less.   She'll be wearing shamrocks for St. Patty's day and I'm even looking forward to the Fourth of July because of its potential for back-yard bar-b-ques and Leah in a bathing suit.  I think having a baby gives me an excuse to celebrate those "little" holidays when I wouldn't have bothered before. 

As a kid I never cared much for Thanksgiving, but now, the idea of eating delicious food and spending time with family really appeals to me.  It's easily become my favorite fall holiday, inching out Halloween, with Christmas coming in dead last.  Growing up I loved Christmas.  Christmas meant time off from school and getting presents.  And in college, Christmas was about seeing my family and hanging out with old high school friends.  Now I kind of dread Christmas.

I do love the religious side of Christmas - going to church on Christmas eve, the decorations, singing carols, and spending time with family.  But I hate the commercial side of Christmas and the obligations that come with it.  We were so fortunate this year to have my mom and sister come to visit us (thanks guys!!!), but usually it's BA and I traveling to see family.  We spend massive amounts of money and time to get back east and the whole process is just stressful.  Driving around trying to see everyone and never feeling like we spent enough time with the right people.  And presents - ugh.  If I had it my way, we'd never exchange presents again.  I don't care for them because I spend several weeks leading up to Christmas stressing over whether or not I got the right things for everyone, and making sure to get an equal number of presents for each member of the family.  And I really don't want people to feel obligated to spend their hard-earned money on me either.  I am a firm believer in the saying, "it's more fun to give, than to get."  But I'd rather just cut the whole thing out.  Let's all save our money and do something else with it.  I have a friend in law school whose entire family - brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents - takes a vacation to Aruba for Christmas.  They've done this for 8 years now.  They don't buy any presents, they just all go on a sunny beach vacation together.  This sounds perfect to me.  And for a while now, my side of the family has been trying to do something like this but we've never been able to pull it off.  Maybe this year we'll finally do it. 

Last week I found out that an acquaintance of mine has leukemia.  She is only 28 and was living a normal young adult life in D.C. until she came down with a flu that wouldn't go away.  Less than 2 months later she checked into the hospital and started chemotherapy.  That was a year ago.  Now the cancer is still in her bone marrow and has spread to her brain and spinal fluid.  This is the same cancer that killed my uncle 20 years ago.  It is a terrible, awful disease, and it's not fair.

When I heard about this acquaintance of mine, my heart dropped.  I just wanted to snuggle with Leah and thank God that everyone in my family is healthy.  I thought back to Scary Doctor and how much they tormented me.  I thought about how wrong Scary Doctor was and how lucky I am to have a healthy, happy, baby girl.  I was reminded of what's really important in life; the only thing that is important in life ... spending time with the ones you love, and letting those people who you can't spend time with know that you love them, too.  And that's why the "little" holidays are so great for me now.  They don't come with stress, or presents, or travel, or obligations.  They just come with family, and close friends.  And Leah.