Newsflash: Life's Not Always Fair

I wanted to post this before Christmas, and I thought about just hanging on to it until this year, but I really wanted to post it, so here you go. Just think of it as either being really early or really late. Take your pick.


Sometimes it's easy to see how unfair life is when things don't go our way. It's hard to see the good in our lives when we are frustrated or unhappy about the direction that things are going. Instead we whine, we cry and we complain. And to some people our bouts of crazyness seem, well crazy, yet to others, they seem rational. Where's the balance?

Today I witnessed several people on Facebook (don't judge, I have no homework and nothing to do at work, so I'm married to Facebook from 8-5) complaining about a variety of things that were still on their to-do list before Sunday. Shopping, wrapping, cleaning, baking. The list was endless.

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I have a huge to-do list of my own. But, I also know that if it doesn't happen, the world won't come to an end and Christmas won't be ruined. Life will go on. Christmas will go on.

I used to be all gung-ho about everything being perfect. Then I started back to college at 30 and realized that I would have to learn to prioritize and let things go. Some things would be worth the hassle, and in the end, other things would wait. I quit wrapping Christmas presents years ago. It stresses me out. I hate doing it. My packages look like a 2 year old wrapped them. So I started "cheating" and doing gift bags. It took me all of 45 minutes to bag up everything, and actually wrap 4 gifts. It was easy, it was quick, and most importantly, I was happy.

This year we cut out a lot of gift giving. We scaled way, way back. Not because of the economy, but because I'm a full time college student, and I couldn't shop all year long like I usually do. I manage to find great little deals and hold onto them for next year. Which usually allows us to be extravagant for little money. This year, most of my shopping has been done since Thanksgiving, and I'm even happy to admit, I'm still not quite through. I'm not stressed about it. I'm just thankful that we both work, and that we have the means to provide gifts for the family that we did.

Yes, I'll admit, we didn't do anything for John's family. With the lack of communication, and the space that we are all taking great advantage of, I didn't do anything for any of them. I don't feel bad about that either.

So I posted on Facebook today, and thought it might be relevant to some of you reading this post too.

I'm amazed at how many people are complaining today about the things that they feel like they have to do in order for Christmas to not completely and totally fall apart. Christmas should be about celebrating, not about stressing out. I'm pretty sure that God doesn't care if the presents are wrapped, the cookies are baked, or the gifts for our friends and family are bought. I'm pretty sure that he's more concerned about the real reason for Christmas, which as nothing to do with the above mentioned items. Perhaps we should take a step back and remember that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of a savior, not about the packages under the tree.