Under The Tree.

I want to be be honest with you. The Holidays are not always awesome or amazing or beautiful.

Sometimes they are full of awful. Because life doesn’t care about your calendar. It doesn’t care that the radio plays Bing Crosby or that Rudolph will hit your living room screen. Doesn’t matter if it’s a live or fake tree. Doesn’t matter if there are presents or just no money.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter that there is tinsel and garland hanging on the gas station wall.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter at all.

There are plenty of platitudes and seasons of givings. Plenty of ornaments, candy canes, nativity scenes. Plenty of winter wonderland fantasies full of cocoa and caroling. And sometimes it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

For many.

Sometimes it’s just about broke and alone. Homeless. Outcast. Wishing you could be a dentist instead of an elf. Picking out the most perfect imperfect tree and determining that this is your Charlie Brown moment that never gets or wants Linus and his mystic dream.

Sometimes it’s just the water bill. Groceries. The rent. The hope for a roof or a home or … at least a friend.

Sometimes… that calendar forces smiles in hearts that need to cry. Sometimes this is yet another time no one asks why. Sometimes the season is brutal and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about the calendar that tries to shut out time — as life moves on regardless — or…