Insane in the Brain

Hello blogging world…this is Kathy’s son Kevin. I have decided to overtake my mother’s blog for a day and share “the view from my side of the street.”
This holiday season started the same as many do. My wife decided that we needed to create a budget so that we don’t over spend for Christmas. I laughed at her, which is my common response anytime she brings up the word budget, but cordially went along with her plan. We started our shopping sometime after Thanksgiving and actually did a decent job sticking to “our” budget. We wrapped up our shopping and were perfectly ready for the holidays. Her family was going to Hawaii and mine lives out of state so we were going to do our own thing for Christmas. That was the plan, until 24 hours ago…that’s when the insanity broke out.
All of a sudden I got the urge to pack up my wife, our 2 boys and our entire Christmas and drive to my mom’s. I’m never spontaneous so my wife took my temperature and when she deemed me healthy decided to go along with my plan. The next thing I know we are packing up the car, doing some last minute shopping for people we didn’t anticipate to see this year and trying to decide what in the hell would possess us to pack up a 2 ½ year old and an 10 month old and drive 10 hours through the night to surprise some family. Family that we will inevitably regret going to see after we annoy, pester and piss off each other to the point of no return and then leave wondering why do I subject myself to this insanity?
The answer is quite simple…for 6 weeks a year we decide to live our lives with a new motto. What is this motto? Peace on earth, good will to men. For some reason every year as soon as Thanksgiving is over and we are all on Turkey overload, “tis the season” mode kicks in and we actually begin to care about other’s well beings. We decide that maybe peace on earth and good will to men is attainable. Yet as we throw away the Christmas tree our mood changes and all we can think about is returning the gifts that we hate and begin the process of looking forward to next year.
I’ve been called a scrooge for many years because I don’t get over excited about Christmas and decorations. Perhaps it is because I don’t want to be a hypocrite for 6 weeks of the year. What would happen if we made the choice to act the way we act for the holidays all year long? What would happen if instead of throwing our good cheer out with the tree we choose to keep good cheer in our hearts and cared about the well being of our fellow man all year long? For one brief moment, I succumbed to the insanity, got in the holiday spirit and now I’m sitting in my mother’s living room watching Christmas Vacation…absolutely loving it. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?
Merry Christmas and God Bless Us Everyone!