Commentary By Danielle Pelkey

The North Jefferson News



Well, Thanksgiving is over and it is time for everyone to be in the Christmas spirit.

Of course, I already have my tree up and our house looks like Santa dumped all of his lights in our drive way. We are really excited this year.

Our most exciting change of this coming Christmas is the fact that this will be our first Christmas as parents.

Raygan, our daughter, will be my favorite part this year. She is nine months old and ready to get into everything.

The great part of having such a young child for Christmas is that she doesn’t care at all about her gifts; she just wants to open the presents.

I actually wrapped part of her Christmas right in front of her the other day. She just played with the wrapping paper and didn’t pay any attention to the gift I was wrapping. That made it clear to me that I’m not spending a fortune on her first Christmas gifts. She won’t remember them anyway.

Watching Raygan during this season reminds me of when I was a little girl. I was the worst kid in the whole world on Christmas mornings.

My parents would break their backs to get me everything on my Christmas list and it never failed that I would complain.

I can still see my momma crying in the kitchen after we opened our gifts. If there were one thing I could change about my whole childhood that would be it. I still feel horrible about the way that I acted. My dad would tell me to “hush up” and mom would just leave the room.

Oh Lord, please don’t make me pay for my raising in this aspect. I really don’t think that even my mom would wish that on us for our family Christmas.

We have some of them on video, so we can watch what a spoiled brat that I was, over and over and over again. I really am ashamed.

So, mom and dad, take this column as my public apology for being such a jerk on every Christmas morning. I know this doesn’t make up for it, but I really am sorry.

Okay, enough with the apologies, let’s look at the fun part again. There are beautiful Christmas trees in every living room, festive lights on every house and the best food in the world in every oven.

Who wouldn’t love this time of the year? I can really tell I’ve grown up the past few years because Christmas has little to do with the gifts and much, much more to do with Jesus’ birth and family.

Growing up, we always had the tradition that early Christmas morning, before we ran into the living room to open our gifts, we would all gather around the bed and read the real Christmas story found in Luke 2.

This is something that I will be doing with our new family this year. I want us to keep the real thing, the real thing.

I know what you’re thinking — “Wow, you acted like a brat even after the whole family read the Bible.”

And, the answer is yes. See why I feel so horrible about it?

So, as we rush off to the local stores to shop for all of the goodies that will light up the eyes of our closest family and friends, remember the real reason for this season and try to enjoy every aspect of it.

I know that I do.