My wife doesn’t really understand. Nor do I for that matter. Why I despise this season so much.

Katie loves the music, the “feel” in the air, the lights, gifts, and absolutely the reason behind Thanksgiving and more importantly, the reason behind Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Me? It’s hard for me to look through all the crap.

And then I read stuff like this.

(CNN) — A temporary Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death Friday in a rush of thousands of early morning shoppers as he attempted to unlock the doors of a Valley Stream, New York, store at 5 a.m., police said.

and this:

Riverside County sheriff’s Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said Palm Desert police received several calls of shots being fired inside the store and found two people dead when they arrived. He had no information on a suspect or suspects.

Maybe all these years as a police officer have made me just so cynical.

I begin dreading the holiday season on December 26th of each year. And it just grows progressively worse the closer we get. And to walk into a store before Halloween and see Christmas ornaments already in the aisles for sale just exacerbates it.

So what does make me happy this time of year?

Family, friends… knowing my wife and kids have a warm loving home to live in. Watching my wife run around decorating the house for “the season”. Taking the fall decorations down and carefully putting them in a box and getting out the Christmas decorations and putting them out. Hanging stockings over the fireplace. A warm fire. I love a warm fire in our living room.

For my wife and I, to be able to sit back and relax, watch television or listen to music with a crackling fire, some hot coffee. Having a living room floor picnic sometimes.

Listening to my wife encourage me as I struggle with my fear of heights going up and down a ladder hanging Christmas lights on the house. With her listening to me gripe and complain the entire time.

Admiring the lights when we’re done and glad we did it. My knees calling me names.

Watching Katie “work the numbers” so we can give the kids really cool stuff for Christmas. Though the main thing they want is CASH.

Remembering when we didn’t have anything. We stuffed stockings and wrapped stuff that we bought at the dollar store. Shopped at discount stores just so the kids could have something under the tree. Remembering when we would receive a check from a parent and immediately go spend it on the kids, telling ourselves that we would get each other something later in the year.

Remembering when Katie received this little tree, about 12 inches tall from her mom. Watching her open the packaging and get excited about it and leaning over hanging the miniature ornaments on it. As excited as if she had been given the world. And it breaking my heart that I couldn’t give her the world.

And how each year, it’s important to me, one of the most important parts of the season, for her, and only her, to unwrap this little tree and hang the ornaments on it. It’s a bittersweet memory. Sweet because it made her happy. Bitter because that was about all we had at the time.

Last night, Paige, our oldest, started to hang the ornaments on this tree and I couldn’t explain to her why I didn’t want her to and insisted she let her mom do it. How stupid of me.

These memories turn to joy as time goes by. Because I look back and we toughed it out. We had each other. The kids have always had everything they needed. Maybe not everything they want but they truly didn’t lack for anything.

Tonight, we’re done with the lights, mostly done with shopping. A few odds and ends to pick up.

Katie has gifts for her clients and some of our close friends. She bought gifts for the kids she cares for during the day. I watched her sit on the couch or at the dining room table and carefully, and with all the heart in the world, wrap each one. With an incredible amount of love, she packaged the gifts, making sure they were exactly how she wanted them. There is more to those wrappings than paper, clear gift bag, and ribbon. There is part of her in each one. She’ll probably call me silly. She doesn’t see “her” the way I, and many other’s do.

This entire writing has turned a corner. It started out about the commercialism of Christmas and the fools that put human life below the next great deal.

Now its about my family. My wife.

So what is Christmas to me? Of course, it’s the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s also about the unconditional love I strive for, for my wife and kids. Agape. It’s about the families who are mourning the loss of loved ones in Mumbai, Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the world.

It’s about putting other people first. Before self. Loving like…

Christ.