Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

This happens to me every year I think. It's just that every year I forget. It's Christmas time again. I am happy for that. My tree and the accoutrements are up around the house. Gifts have been purchased (some have been wrapped). I've watched White Christmas and have my Christmas mix playing whenever I log into Pandora - but it just doesn't feel like Christmas to me yet.

It's such a sad feeling for me every year. I wait for that Christmas spirit to smack me upside the head. The kind where you walk outside and the cold air and snow smell like the holidays and even though it stays bitterly cold inside your car until the heater really kicks in you're happy. Or when you go to a Christmas party and the house/apt is so warm from all the body heat, food and hot drinks it feels as if you're always standing at the hearth of the fireplace. The smell of sugar cookies.

Nowadays, I don't get into the full blown Christmas spirit until right around Christmas Eve-eve. And at that point it all flies by so fast I can't absorb everything I want to savor fast enough.

I think it's work that does it. Even with holiday parties and Secret Santas, work still has its steady routine that really doesn't vary. I think it's not having the winter break to jump start everything. Your whole semester builds up to the onslaught that is finals week and then there is this huge, overwhelming relief - Christmas. You go home. There's a change of pace. Everything is different, everyone is happy and everything rings of Christmas spirit.

I'm not sad, really. I'm actually really relaxed and content with life...just wanting to feel that high.

I'll get there. I just wish it would come faster.