I had just finished up my Evidence exam, and a flood hit me of freedom and excitement to have my semester completely finished. As I hadn't gotten a chance to start my Christmas shopping started, with only a few days left before the holiday, I decided to head off to start checking some things off my list.
Among the gifts I bought were some things for a family I kinda adopted. They were desperately in need of some Christmas cheer, and I had figured out a cool way to anonymously get some gifts for them. So I wandered around Target for near 2 hours grabbing stuff off the shelves and then got to the Christmas stockings. For some reason, Christmas stockings have always been more essential to Christmas even than the tree for me. In my family, the gifts in the stockings were smaller, but usually more meaningful. We always got an ornament, and Santa writes my sister and I a personalized letter that always makes me tear up.
I was fortunate enough to be able to get this family their stockings for the year, and as I stood in the middle of Target, I started to tear up. Staring at the stockings and just picturing the joy it might bring to another family. That combined with the cumulative exhaustion from finals... It was my first Christmas moment of the season.
Later that night, I was volunteering for a fundraiser my roommate had asked me if I wanted to attend. It was this amazing jazz benefit for kids with HIV and AIDS. The work needed of the volunteers was pretty light, so I bought a celebratory bottle of one of my favorite wines, and let the music just soak into me. It was some of the most awesome Christmas singing I have ever heard. And the event raised an amazing amount of money.
It just felt so good to be reminded that, yes, we actually are in the midst of the Christmas spirit. A spirit of charity and good will. There's nothing better.
God bless us, every one.
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