All I Want for Christmas...

So yesterday, I was listening to this, and yeah... I probably played and replayed it about 50 times:

(I don't even like this song, usually, but I love this group! They're Christian, but they also do secular covers... I recommend!).

However, on probably the 17th time through or so, I started thinking about the words I was listening to. "All" I want for Christmas is you. I don't need "a lot" for Christmas. I won't ask for "much" this Christmas.

Huge caveat here: I'm sure that this was not how the song was meant to be taken, so straw man, maybe? But disregarding the person is such a prevalent offense that I think this is relevant anyway.

We are each a gift, yes! Take a second to celebrate that... eat some ice cream, hug your mom, do a dance in your living room. Yay! You are a gift, and your best friend is a gift, and that person you really don't like is also a gift (sorry, can't get off the hook with that one). As it says in Gaudium et Spes, "Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others." Let's put it this way: are you happier when living only for yourself, following every whim and desire - or are you happier when you live for others? When you serve? Anyone who has ever volunteered, gone on a mission trip or raised a child would say the latter. 

Okay, so we are meant to give ourselves. But what kind of gift? 

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

If a man or woman were to ask for you for Christmas, that would be the most amazing, incredible, intense gift that he or she could possibly receive (besides God himself, of course). Mind-blowing, really. 

Unless you're getting down on one knee with a ring (or unless this has already taken place, plus a couple "I do's"), I would be pretty hesitant about asking for a PERSON for Christmas. This isn't a gift to be given or received casually - people aren't toys that get boring, or gadgets that go out of date when the newest technology comes out. You can't throw them away or replace them. 

Don't ask for someone for Christmas, or give yourself away, unless you really mean it. And then, give radically, sacrificially... don't hold back. 

The One in Which I Explain Myself

Hello, blogosphere! I'm joining the party. 

This one time, my brother and I had a conversation that went like this:

Mike: What are we going to do tonight?
Me: I don't know.
Mike: We can't do EVERYTHING!

This phrase has become a legendary joke in my family, but there's some truth in it. Yes, I'll submit that I can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and most recently, Instagram. But I refuse to Google+, Foursquare or Snapchat. I can't do EVERYTHING.

Even so, I've decided to blog. I've dabbled in it before, in a group effort to protect our country's religious freedom (you can check out our work at theamericanremnant.com). I've never written my own personal blog, but here we go!

Soooooo, let's talk about my strange, potentially-cheesy-because-it's-alliterated title. To me, "phlegmatic" sounds like I've got a disease, like I'm coughing up phlegm. The medical revelations I have from my nursing major friend are definitely a topic for another time. But actually, phlegmatic is one of the four classical temperaments. I refer you to this handy resource, which explains the bizzare names (it turns out phlegmatic does have something to do with phlegm after all!), and I encourage you to discover your own temperament: http://www.catholicmatch.com/blog/temperaments/

At any rate, I am phlegmatic: the chillaxed one. The "go-with-the-flow" type. When I say "I don't care, you decide," I (almost always) mean it. I tend to procrastinate, but on the plus side, I'm easy-going and good at keeping the peace. That's my temperament - "an individual’s tendency to react in a certain way throughout their life, forming an identifiable pattern," as the previously cited website states. Apparently I'm also about 10% sanguine (i.e., the happy people person), but that means I'm still 90% easy-going slowpoke.

On the other hand, I'm in good company: Blessed Pope John XXIII was also a phlegmatic! In his Journal of a Soul, he wrote: “Above all I am grateful to the Lord for the temperament he has given me, which preserves me from anxieties and tiresome perplexities… I have noticed that this disposition, in great things and in small, gives me, unworthy as I am, a strength of daring simplicity…”

Hmm... the Vatican II catalyst was a phlegmatic. I'm liking this!

Perhaps this also helps me to reconcile the fact that, although I'm phlegmatic, I'm intensely passionate about Catholicism, particularly about pro-life issues. I also have a dream of helping to reform youth ministry to make it more effective... partly due to pride, I've recently learned (ouch), but partly due to being captivated by the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church. As a friend told me recently, wherever God is moving, that's where I want to be!

I guess it all boils down to this: as long as we get to hang out together, I don't care what we do or where we go out to eat. But I will fight 'til the death to protect religious freedom, the dignity of every human person, and for all people to know Jesus Christ.

**Edit: I would love to hear about your temperament/secondary temperament, if you've discovered it, and what kinds of realizations you've come to about yourself through this process!