Love, Lauren

Dear Raul:

Do you ever feel like time in December marches to some other beat, a faster one; a cadence that you simply aren't ready for even though you knew it was coming?

My finals are done, and I am home at last at my parents' house but it still seems like there are parties or events or a myriad of somethings that still must be attended to. My mother says try as she might to get more done earlier in the year, it simply doesn't seem to make a difference. The pace of December's days and nights is simply accelerated no matter what she does. It's all part of the preparations for Christmas. And she's just gotten used to it.

This just doesn't seem right to me somehow. The first Christmas wasn't fast or frantic or exhausting. It was quiet and unhurried and practically missed by everyone except for some shepherds. If we are trying to recapture the wonder of the first Christmas, it seems to me we are grasping for something that is completely OTHER. Not bad or disrespectful or unhealthy, just other. There is the real Christmas, the first one. And there is the other one, the one we drive ourselves to exhaustion every year to create. I think we are missing something.

Tonight I shall do nothing but drink cocoa and look at the stars . . .

Merry Christmas, Raul. Or should I say Feliz Navidad! Give my love to your parents and sisters. . .