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| This pie was calling my name-loudly, like in a banshee voice. |
Each day, from now until Christmas, I will be sharing one
Christmas miracle that occurs in my life. I call it the “24 Days of Christmas
Miracles” campaign. (It would sound much better if it were 25 days, but I
actually started yesterday, when I wrote about a Christmas miracle on Facebook,
and I think I’m stretching it by counting yesterday anyway). What constitutes a
Christmas miracle? I think you know me well enough by now to understand that I
will not be telling you extremely sappy stories of how people were good to each
other, or stories of religion, or things that might qualify as human interest
pieces on the news, although don’t totally rule any of that out. No, my
Christmas miracles will be stories of things that happen to me or my loved ones
that are in their own ways, somewhat amazing.
For example, yesterday’s Christmas miracle occurred in the
evening. I had gotten home after working a twelve-hour day, and I was
exhausted, plus I wore really uncomfortable shoes yesterday, so my feet hurt. I
took off my shoes, changed into workout clothes, and promptly got in my bed to “relax
a bit” before getting on the treadmill. This scenario usually means that I will
fall asleep at 8 PM in my workout clothes, but last night—alas!—it was not a
portent of this disappointing fate. No,
I actually got up out of my bed at 8:52 PM, and walked on the treadmill for 30
minutes! It was truly a miracle of the season! Another, related miracle is
that, while I was walking, I watched Scandal and now I am almost caught up so I
can start watching it live again. Hoorah for the little things!
Today’s Christmas miracle is maybe just as miraculous, if
not more so, than yesterday’s. You see, today, when I walked into the teacher’s
lounge to refill my water bottle, what did I spy, but a delightful pecan pie
sitting on the table? I love pecan pie, because it is super-sweet, and also it
has pecans, which I used to eat all the time as a kid. I passed right on by that
pecan pie, though, in the hour following my pie avoidance I must confess that I
did lust after it in my heart several times. Then, as I was coming back inside
from the fire drill, I started walking toward the lounge, engaged in a fierce
inner battle over whether or not I would, indeed, act on my illicit feelings
about the pie. I was just about to give in, when I remembered something I read
in an article on the website I use to help me lose weight. It was about self-sabotage,
and it stated that when people are attempting weight loss, they will sometimes
set themselves back by making choices they know they don’t want to make. I
thought, “Dammit! I really don’t want to eat this pie, and I’m not going to!” That’s right folks, instead of scarfing
down a piece of pecan pie like it was a bottle of Evian I found in the desert,
I got the apples out of my lunch and ate them instead! It was a truly
miraculous event!
Now, you may think my Christmas miracles are trivial, or
that my calling them miracles makes a mockery of perhaps the larger miracles of
Christmas of which you may have heard. However, I respectfully disagree.
Sometimes in the day-to-day struggles that are our lives, it is truly
miraculous when we make a choice not to continue doing something that is bad
for us or our loved ones, or when we decide to do something for ourselves that
will make things just a little bit better. Sometimes such decisions require a
large measure of courage and determination and, as we recover from major
setbacks and our more common daily disappointments, to make a good choice, even
one time, is something for which we should truly be thankful. And if that’s not
the true meaning of Christmas, then what is?
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