I Heart Jimmy Stewart

Something is different this year. Something is not right.

I put up the Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving, hoping that it would put me in the holiday spirit. So far it hasn’t worked. (It didn't help that Jake knocked the tree over today.) It sits bare underneath. I have barely bought any presents and haven’t wrapped the ones that I have hidden away. I have watched White Christmas twice, but I haven’t swooned over Bing Crosby like usual.

I just haven’t been feeling the spirit.

Maybe because it was seventy-five degrees this week and we are halfway through December without snow. Maybe I was distracted by last weekend’s wedding festivities. Maybe I dread the thought of not being home for my family’s Christmas dinner tomorrow. Maybe because, in the back of my mind, a few of last year’s Christmas wishes haven’t come true.

This just isn’t me. Normally, I am singing the wrong words to all of my Christmas CDs and shopping for the perfect gifts. I usually get giddy over decorating the tree and putting strands of lights outside the house. By now, I have normally watched about fourteen-thousand Christmas movies, even the sappy ones on the Hallmark channel.

But tonight I ran across a movie that I had never seen, It’s A Wonderful Life. I know! I know! I know what you are thinking. How can I be a Christmas-junkie if I have never seen It’s A Wonderful Life?!? Well, I hadn’t. If you want to blame someone, blame my mother. She should have made me watch it years ago.

At the point in the movie when Jimmy Stewart picks up the copy of Tom Sawyer and reads Clarence’s message, my heart burst into a million pieces. I felt all girly and teary-eyed and hopeful…..and I found Christmas.

Now, I am not talking about cleaning-the-house-happy, but I think that I am going to wrap presents tomorrow. I am going to repair the damage that my dog did to the tree, pick up the gifts that I haven’t purchased and maybe attempt to make a batch of cookies.

I might even renew my Christmas wishes from last year.