One More Day

In one more day, it will be Christmas...so much excitement, baking cookies and our traditional candy cane bread, wrapping gifts and filling stockings that are all hung by the chimney with care.  Excited anticipation as to what the next 24 hours will bring.  All of the preparation--the shopping, wrapping, decorating, dressing up, pulling things out of the attic, rearranging the living room, making sure the Christmas tree has enough water--all will come to fruition in one more day.  

In one more day, my youngest granddaughter will come up the stairs, open the door, and will behold a beautiful, magical sight--the entire living room transformed into a winter wonderland, complete with twinkling lights, snowflakes, tinsel, garland, ribbon, and "snow."  And she will gaze on it with childlike wonder, and then the melee will begin!  Sophie will wake up from her big girl bed to a wonderful Christmas with her Mommy and Daddy, her Grandma and Grandpa, and her Uncle David, in one more day.

In one more day, carefully wrapped gifts will be excitedly and hurriedly unwrapped, paper and tags going every which way; bags will be filled with wrapping paper and boxes and plastic, and David will separate recyclables into the appropriate outside bins.  Candy cane cake will be sliced and eaten with a delicious, hot cup of coffee, and I will manage to not eat any, or any other sugar, for just one more day.

In one more day, we will all call our families and friends, near and far, who cannot celebrate with us this year.  We will wish them Merry Christmas, compare Christmas morning gift bonanzas, tell them we loved what they got us, chit chat for a few moments, and then quickly end that call and make the next one.  Yes, there are fewer calls to make this year--both of Alex's parents, my dad, a few friends--all dead and gone.  We will pick up the phone, look at a photo, an ornament, or perhaps even a gift that brings their memory painfully clear for just one more day.

In one more day, we will celebrate, not just commemorate, the birth of a tiny child who came to save us all from sin and death.  And hopefully, we will realize, that in one more day,

It is not

Just one more day.