When is Christmas?

There is no greater excitement that I have known. 

Well that is not quite true.  Seven years old Christmas Eve.  There is no greater thought to anyone than the idea that you will have a pile of presents from a magical elf at the small price of being relatively good that year (that and your parents keeping their jobs throughout that same year).  But I digress.

Rewind seven years to the point just before that little boy or girl is born.  That's right.  The excitement of bringing a child into this world.  That is part you and part someone else (that in this case is the person you care the most about).

You see so much of life is based on things that we either can have, because we can afford them and have access to them, or that we can't, due to the inverse.  But in both cases you  can have closure relatively quickly.  A TV you can go to the store and pickup same day.  A dodo egg omelette you can't have because dodos are extinct. A house you can bid on and you still are likely to close within a matter of weeks.  An invisible jet you can't have because it doesn't exist and if it did it would be too expensive.  Even specific antique or collector items which require research, bidding, and some patience will have some resolution if you put the effort into it.

With pregnancy it is essentially like paying for something but waiting 9 1/2 months for shipping.  True you go into the doctor to track the shipping – though they will consistently tell you why you don't want expedited shipping – but you just have to be patient. Yet unlike a shipped package, you are not in constant contact with the package.

Imagine you are that little boy, 7 years old.  You ask for a puppy.  It's March.  Let's say you have already passed your birthday the previous month.  You've been asking for a little while but today you are told YES!  You will have a puppy at Christmas.  Exciting, no?  Then you are told the package is right over there by the fireplace (which is subsequently where the tree will go up).  Your eyes widen.  It's already here… why wait till Christmas?  No, no you are told you have to wait.  But it will be ready for Christmas.

You sit down.  Every day you look at the present sitting there.  After a few weeks as you come down to breakfast you see the box move a little.  You want to play, but when you go over the box isn't moving anymore.

More weeks go by and the box gets bigger in your mind.  You begin to hear noises and it moves all over the place. You look desperately at the calendar but it is still mid-October.  You don't even get a costume for Halloween because all you can think about is your puppy.  It even seems now that the box will move more when you are by it putting your hand on the box.

For many the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is either incredibly long or incredibly short depending on your point of view.  Imagine you are a 7-year old kid.  That last month, after having waited all so long already.  

What's funny then is if you imagine the metaphor even more realistically.  Where you don't actually know when Christmas is.  You have a vague notion it is probably in a few weeks, but it could be tomorrow. Or it could be closer to a month and a half away.  You ask someone who should know these things and they shrug and tell you it will probably be in a few weeks but… and shrug again.

It is maddening. But exhilarating.  As this child for the first time you really get into the holiday spirit making cookies, cutting paper snowflakes, buying diapers (metaphor crumbling), etc.  The extended waiting time builds the excitement.

And so here I am, nearly 33 asking: When is Christmas?