What happened to Christmas?

I have the Christmas blues. It's 3 days until Christmas. We don't have a Christmas tree. Nothing is decorated. I'm missing all my family traditions: Christmas eve dinner, spending the night with my sister, waking up to Papa's waffles, opening our stockings first at breakfast, gathering around the tree with family and close friends to open gifts and celebrate the day, going to a movie with my sister in the afternoon. I miss just being with my family at this time. We will spend Christmas with P.'s family, where they actually have a tree, so maybe it will feel a little more like Christmas. But it's the build-up to Christmas that I usually enjoy. The whole month of holiday-spirit. I missed it.

P. is in the process of starting his own company with two other associates. It's been an extremely busy time. But in all the business of years before, I would have made time to decorate, I would be listening to Christmas music, I'd have fun picking out presents for close friends and family, I'd plan great meals to cook. I feel like I have completely lost the Christmas spirit. The only I thing I managed to do was write Christmas cards and even those will be late to my friends in America because I sent them first to my mother to stamp and she hasn't received them yet.

"We hear the beating of wings over Bethlehem and a light that is not of the sun or of the stars shines in the midnight sky. Let the beauty of the story take away all narrowness, all thought of formal creeds. Let it be remembered as a story that has happened again and again, to men of many different races, that has been expressed through many religions, that has been called by many different names. Time and space and language lay no limitations upon human brotherhood." - Manuel van Buren 1938

Last movie: In Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz, Toni Collete and Shirley MacLaine. I went with some of "the girls" in Enschede and we loved the movie. It's not just a chick flick, it goes deeper into complex relationships between people.

Current book: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Multi-Culti Meisjes Boek Club book) I'm really trying to enjoy the book, but it's difficult for me to get into. It's written by a Brazilian author and very colorful and descriptive so far. I have plenty of time to read during holiday travel, so I'm sure I will finish it before the next book club meeting. The last book I read for the California book club, Cloud Atlas, was brilliant, but took me a month and a half before I got into it. I hope this one picks up the pace.

Addendum: I added the picture above after Christmas. It's a picture of me and P.'s dad by the Christmas tree. It began to feel a lot more like Christmas once we were with his family. :o)