This will seem long-winded, but humor me. The other night, I put my parents' home movies (8mm) onto DVD and my dad and I watched them. We noticed how with their first child, everything was a major event and how they did strange things, like run as if they too were toddlers. They played in the snow, gave him baths together, filmed nauseatingly long segments of him sleeping, a major bash for his first birthday, etc. #2 came along, he got brought home, got baptized, joined in a couple family trips. #3 got born and brought home, #4 just showed up one day as a two-yr-old, #5 showed up for two minutes of rolling over, and # 6, apparently fell out of the sky and just stayed around to appear much later in still shots.

So, where I'm headed with all this is, that, as time marches on, I honestly believe that our unbridled enthusiasm for most things just tends to wane toward the more comfortable. I'd hardly call it a failing or a loss to not feel like making a big ordeal out of a holiday that is focused on children.

That said, I am inwardly more enthusiastic about Christmas from a faith perspective than anything else. I have no kids so that angle has never driven my Christmas spirit. For me, time has mellowed my sense of what is important, the same way that I grew out of bar nights and all-nighters after college.

Don't be too hard on yourselves, it's really a natural course to mellow with time. Enjoy a glass of wine out in the open, it's legal for us adults!