God bless us every one!

We are in the final daze. The Christmas rush is on. C-minus-four and counting.

Christmas will arrive whether we're ready or not. It might not be perfect — What is ever perfect? — but it will be Christmas, which in itself is cause to celebrate. At Christmas, we cling to memories of the past, which is a good thing, so long as we don't try to force the past upon the present. For 30 years, I followed the family tradition I had grown up with — an extended family gathering at my grandparents' (and later my aunts'). But when that era ended, we found new and wonderful ways to celebrate Christmas, and I realized what I had been missing. Now we have our own extended family, and we are the grandparents. We would like to gather our children and grandchildren around us early on Christmas morning as my own grandparents did. We would like to have a house full of the people we love the most. But even in years when that is not possible, we celebrate Christmas with the ones who can be present or with those who invite us to their homes in a role reversal my grandparents never knew. My parents used to ask, amid the clutter and chaos of predawn Christmas morning, "Did you get what you wanted?"

Every year, I get more than I deserve. As Tiny Tim would say, "God bless us every one!"