The Christmas Season, single or not single

In the past, I have never been very into the Christmas season. It really just made me feel lonely.
It was like a month long Valentine's Day. To clarify, I am not necessarily talking about Christ's birth, but rather the season of Christmas that is portrayed in movies. The one with people all gathered in the living room decorating and laughing, drinking egg nog and playing games. The whole scene from Serendipity where they are skating around central park while its snowing. That kind of stuff.

I have just come to the realization that all those things make you feel either really lonely or really happy. Its one of the two. If you are in love and are having that love reciprocated, the yule time is a rock your socks off good time. However, if you are single, it's just cold and annoying and expensive and annoying. This whole argument, of course, excludes anyone young enough to not be concerned with the opposite sex; meaning for all 12 year olds, Christmas rocks. Always. Barring some tragic family accidents or situations... I don't want to make light of anyone's tough situation.

Continuing on...

I would like to give a short discussion on the great things about the Christmas season as I see them from my current engaged perspective, and by "discussion," I mean I am going to write out the things I am looking forward to doing with Suzanne around the holidays.

Walking around "looking at the lights" which really means she is going to be squeezing my arm really tight as I look at her from the corner of my eye. She will be looking at the lights.
Watching Christmas Vacation with Suzanne (who knows every line) and laughing lots.
Seeing Suzanne wear really weird clothes (its easier to accessories in cold weather... duh) but look really really pretty in them.
Gluwine.
Eating fancy cheese and drinking wine and getting kissed by Suzanne.

Most of this really just involves Suzanne. I guess everything is made sweeter when you get to share it; share it with a girl/woman, not a heterosexual life partner. I wouldn't want to kiss, or snuggle by a fire with Lafe. No offense.

Stuart pointed out to the fact that my profile says I am from Afghanistan. This is not accurate and will be rectified.

Last night Suzanne and I had a really good discussion about the Sermon on the Mount and the whole good fruit bad fruit concept. Its really great, amazing, awesome, etc. to be in love with a woman who is wise and gives good counsel. Suzanne is so good at holding fast to the most basic points and from them, moving out into all the unclear parts of scripture. I can get turned around a little bit, as was the case last night, but Suzanne totally reeled me in and reminded me of some really simple truths that I was overlooking.

This discussion was in addition to one about beauty. It is fun to talk about beauty with the most beautiful woman I know. Throughout this conversation, I realized the wonder of God's timing. Suzanne and I often wondered why we never met each other before it was nearly too late. But during this conversation Suzanne was expressing her frustration at some guys' idea of the perfect woman being someone who wasn't concerned with how they looked. She wouldn't wear make up or be caught up in her appearance. I totally used to think that way. But somewhere between summer project in Florida and my last two semesters in Fayetteville, I changed that viewpoint. The perfect woman does dress up, she can wear make up if she wants, she does wear nice clothes and puts flowers in her room and smells nice. She does a lot of things that have no apparent worth to a guy, because she is expressing the beauty of God. She is Eve, the human form of beauty. She is concerned with beauty because she was made to be beautiful. Just like guys are captivated by great leaders and competition, beauty captivates a woman. That idea/concept has been manipulated by the fall to be a huge struggle for women comparing themselves to other women, feeling like they aren't beautiful if they don't appear to look like whoever happens to be on the cover of a magazine in the grocery store line.

I thought about what life would be like if I had married a girl who had no concern for beauty. It would be like being married to a skinnier dude. I don't want that. I really like that Suzanne is beautiful, and that she likes to be beautiful. She really likes me to tell her I think she is beautiful. Without her, everything in my life would be quantified, measured, compared, optimized etc. But women and beauty don't work like that, they just are. It can't be saved up or stored away. It can only be enjoyed.

Epic

Epic could be one of the coolest ideas in our culture today, in my culture anyway. On the Road - epic. First ascents in Patagonia - epic. Heli skiing in AK - epic. Persevering through a low paying, high stress job made that way because of a short sighted, crass, cheap, and belittling boss - epic? I don't know.