As I sit in the living room after all the presents have been opened, I look around at the family surrounding me. My siblings playing with their gifts, my parents laughing and joking around with each other. All I can see and feel in the room is love. The holidays are such a magical time of year and not because gifts are given or received, but because there's so much love in each house. I understand some families don't have that love in their homes, but the friendships those people have can be the equivalent of the love of family. The presents are opened and all the adrenaline has worn off.
My family slept in one Christmas morning and normally we are told to eat breakfast before opening our presents, but this year we all slept in and the kids got up before our parents. We were allowed to open our presents before eating breakfast that year and it was exciting since we'd never had that opportunity. Sometimes we'd eat cereal for breakfast Christmas morning, but this one Christmas after we opened our presents we had pancakes and bacon. After we ate breakfast it was clean up time. We cleaned our rooms (if they weren't already cleaned) and then got dressed in something that wasn't pajamas.
Once all that was done, more than likely my dad and I hopped in the kitchen to put the finishing touches on any desserts we'd prepared. My step-dad began working on our soon-to-be delicious Christmas dinner.
There's no stress. No worries about working the next day or on the weekend. It's just a relaxing day filled with love and happiness.
Christmas is about spending time with family and friends and making memories to last lifetimes.
As the day winds down and it's getting late, the night turns bittersweet because we think of Christmas as this magical day and when we go to bed to wake up in the morning, we discover this is just a regular day.
The thing we don't realize though is that there's magic in every day, we just have to believe enough to see it. Discover a new hobby, go for a nature walk and bask in the sunlight between the tree branches. Write a book even if it's horrible you achieved something. You created something out of thin air by putting words on a page with some ink or lead. If you created something like a sculpture or even some crafts, you were the one that believed in your vision enough to see the finished product even when it was simply a lump of clay or just some paper and colored pencils. You had found enough magic to believe that you could create something out of an idea; a simple thought.
On Christmas morning after all the presents have been opened and everyone is so happy with what they have, even if it wasn't something they wanted, they were spending it with the people they loved and that is the true magic in Christmas.
