No Explanation

I have no Christmas spirit.

None.

I seriously think I could sleep from right now till Sunday and I wouldn't care.

Don't get me wrong. I love watching my children love the daylights out of this season. We've baked. We'll read the Christmas story from the bible before bed tomorrow. We'll put out the cookies for Santa. (Or cake balls. Or both.) They wrote their letters, picked out their gifts for each other, and Mommy and Daddy. We've discussed numerous times why Santa only brings 3 gifts per child. (Reason: Because if Jesus only got 3 presents, there's no need for Santa to leave us more than that, since it's a celebration of the birth of JESUS, not of us.) I've explained what frankincense and myrrh are 900 million times.

Presents have been wrapped. Christmas lasagna is in the freezer, ready to be put in the oven. And I feel like I'm just going through the motions. Each year, for 7 years now, our Christmases have been marred by one or two truly suck-tacular events. I don't know if this year my holiday joy boycotted because it knew something was going to happen to yank it away, or if this year no holiday joy IS the suck-tacular event.

Don't get me wrong. I will enjoy the next four days with my family. There will be pictures to take, and some to color. Games to play, skates to learn how to use, and candy to gorge on. It won't be a Norman Rockwell painting, but it will be full of memories painted by the inherent joy, curiosity, and innocence of a 5 year old, and her 4 year old sister. We'll make cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. We'll stalk the fat guy in the red suit thanks to NORAD. Sunday, Paulo and I will "celebrate" being married for 6 years. And Monday, life will be as mundane as ever, and I won't have to worry about this missing Christmas spirit thing.

Can we just skip to Monday?

Also, this is the first time in my life I've ever wished it were a Monday. This might be a bigger problem than I thought!