Disorder in the House

Our church's sanctuary must be 10,000 square feet. It's a pretty big place. They manage to decorate for Christmas (Hang the Greens as they call it), in one Sunday afternoon with the help of many hands. I never volunteer to help with this as I consider decorating for Christmas a torture akin to the trail of tears or the Bataan death march. I can be happy and bouncing with energy until I even think of the process of pulling the 3700 pounds of Tuppermade and Rubberware containers out of the attic and shuffling my world around to unearth and place all the little pieces of flair and the lights and carefully unboxing, hooking and placing the ornaments on the tree. That energy is zapped from me like it was never there. And it feels like it will never come back.

At 36 years old, I literally feel like stomping my feet and throwing a Grand Mal tantrum at the very thought. I cannot deny my raw emotion. I could tell myself to grow up and play along, (which I really do try to do), but inside I am screaming like a mental patient in desperate need for 50cc of Haldol.

And Em just wants someone who will enjoy it with her. I find myself impotent to the challenge. Perhaps a large part of it is that our hanging of the greens takes a lot longer than a Sunday afternoon. Those aforementioned large plastic containers have been out and sitting since Saturday last; and will be there through Sunday this. After all is finally out and placed and dusted and lit and fussed over and ruminated upon, my chore will be to take those now empty but still giant containers back up to the attic... for like, three weeks until they need to come back down. And then go back up, laden once again with 3700 pounds of Christmas cheer, plus the accumulated weight of this year's spoils.

And there will be spoils.

After I get it all back up and out of the way on Sunday, my reward will be to... wait for it... Decorate the low income apartments for Christmas with the youth group! Hazzah! This is a really good thing for the kids to do, and I this will be the fourth year we are doing it. We recognize many of the faces and even are getting to know a lot of the names of the denizens of this place, a former hospital now turned into apartments for people with mental and physical disabilities.

Since it was not conceived as a government run HUD house, it is bereft of the drab indistinct clinical government building pallor. It is a well maintained and very pretty place. After we are done, it even represents something of a festive place.

But, I hate it. Because even though we are bringing joy to a a deserving population, I still can't manage to find happiness in the act of decorating for Christmas.

Maybe after a few more years away from retail I will be more in tune with Christmas and the wonder it represents. Perhaps I will be able to buy into the modern physical celebration that accompanies the faithful thoughtfulness of the season. For now, I just have to force myself to get it done without raining on the parades of all those people out there who are normal, and love this stuff.