I don’t have a Christmas tree in my apartment. I just never got around to it. It’s embarrassing, I know. I was fanatical about Christmas when I was a kid. But when you get older Christmas becomes this different thing, at least for me it has. Traffic is more aggressive, people are more rushed, days are shorter, deadlines are heavy. Sneaking the small simple white lights down from the attic to place in the windows just doesn’t seem to make sense anymore. Jokingly I said to my roommate tonight that Christmas is like a Tornado. You think you are one of those people that is prepared for it until it happens and it’s upon you. The light around you begins to turn green and before you have a chance to react it’s too late. It rumbles by you like a freight train and you are left standing there wondering what the hell just happened, eating a microwavable lean pocket and sipping a vodka tonic.

But at 2am, it’s different. Christmas is that one time of year when you know, no matter what you are doing and no matter what you are thinking, your family, mother, father, sister and brothers, are all thinking exactly the same thing. You know that they are lost in that suitcase of memories you share with them. That they are laying there in bed in that dark room staring at the ceiling, watching the clock and waiting for Christmas morning. There is this random time between sleeping and waking up where we find ourselves all together in that one moment where suddenly Christmas makes sense.

So tonight, in the dark of Christmas Eve, someplace between sleeping and waking up, I opened up the window blinds in our empty apartment. The palm trees outside in our courtyard were wrapped in a string of bright white christmas lights. The glow poured in through the windows. I played my favorite christmas song “Pachelbel” sung by the Vienna Boys Choir. I sat and thought about this tornado I was in. For a moment, the white lights in the window almost seemed intentional, almost seemed like mine. For a moment I knew I was not alone and for a moment Christmas made sense.

Merry Christmas.

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