It's Show Time, Folks!

It's that time again.  Conflicted feelings.  Advent anticipation; flop sweat dread.  If that explains my flat affect when given the run down on the family white elephant gift exchange.  At this point, facing the first Sunday in Advent, it's all too much a problem to be solved rather than a mystery to be lived.

Although...the day to day work logistics do take my mind off of family dynamics.  We are split about 2 to 1 in favor of the introverted and Aspergian.  There are those of us for whom facing the extended family for Christmas revelry is more painful than a root canal; the other third of the family thinks...well, they think badly of the rest of us.  We're antisocial, mean, slacker sociopaths.  Yeah, but they want our company anyway.

I need a full four weeks of prayerful preparation to approach my role as mediator, facilitator, apologist and liason.  Smoothing over, explaining, encouraging.  This is exhausting, since I am part of the introverted majority and no longer have a mother to explain why Ellyn just wants to sit alone in her bedroom for a while.

So, the mentally exhausting work of my day job is a nice distraction.  (Though it calls upon me to be "Social Ellyn" - leaving little of that left for my family)  In some ways, I have my dream job.  But, as I have kvetched in other years, it gets to be a little bit too much like show business rather than religion.  And it is hard to walk into church on Christmas Eve (one of 12 Christmas Masses at our parish) and have that catch in my breath - a moment overwhelmed by the beauty and the mystery.  It's harder when you already know what the hymns will be, the diameter of candles, the purveyor of the incense.  The childlike giddiness is supplanted by the adrenaline fear-rush of having a job that will only be noticeable if I screw it up.

It's show time, folks.  Time to pull it together. Gird my loins.  Pack away my ceramic pumpkins and glass turkeys and get my house in order.