2 Days Until Christmas!

The Ghost of Christmases to Come

I don’t know what the future is going to bring me or even where I’ll be living by this time next year. London? Somewhere in Canada? Will things have sorted themselves out by then? Will I still be working at the same school I’m with now? Will Jeremy and I have decided to travel to another country instead?

Despite the lack of a crystal ball or stern ghost (the one in the Christmas Carol always freaked me out) to tell me what will happen, I can say that when I think of my future, it’s filled with much of what is a part of my life today. Friends and family getting older together, maybe kids of my own one day (need to get married first), and the always-demanding job of being responsible for the education of excited young children who still believe in the spirit of Christmas.

One of the best things about Christmas is the hopefulness of the season. Hope that we'll get to have the dark meat and extra gravy at dinnertime, hope that we'll get to see our cousins for the first time in a year, hope that our mom will love the special gift we got for her, hope that all of these weeks of anticipation will lead to something even greater than we imagined... I hope that in a year we’ll have seen New Orleans get even closer to becoming whole again, that the war in Iraq will have finally found some resolution – one that means all of those lives lost weren’t in vain, that the world will finally decide to do something to stop polluting our little planet, and that Britney and Paris will learn to keep their knickers on.

I hope that this year and all of the years to come will find us happy and healthy, celebrating holidays with loved ones and enjoying life as much as possible.

I hope next year I'll be home for Christmas...

I'll be home for Christmas
you can count on me.
Please have snow, and mistletoe
and presents on the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me
where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas,
if only in my dreams.