You know how some people get the blues at Christmas? I get the blues at Christmas. First, I get irritated. That feeling usually lingers a few weeks. Then I blow up at someone. Then I get sad.

I think it's because Christmas is a time of failure for me.

I usually push through it OK. And people don't seem to clue in on what's going on inside of me. It's the same thing that made my grandma turn to Jim Beam. And my mom turn into, uhm, my mom.

But not me, no sir. I'm a product of transformation. So I'm a believer in it. And I'm still holding out for a Christmas miracle.

I've been trying to reset Christmas for myself for years. It doesn't have to be a bad time. I can learn to enjoy it like everyone else. Only I never do.

A lot of my trouble has to do with 'the gift'. Giving the perfect gift. It needs to communicate the degree of my love. It's hard to gauge that for people you actually love. Can you ever find a gift to embody that?

Trust me, you can't. I know that. I was trained the hard way. Through failure. Constant failure. Gifts I put a lot of time into ... and love into, or so I thought. But they all seemed to fall short. They were opened, reacted to positively..."oh, this is a nice thought", then negatively, "but I am sure I can get something better" and then they were returned. Or balked at. Or thrown on the stove and set fire. Or torn up in my face. Or wrestled to the ground in a string of lights and pine needles. Ugh. The insanity.

That's my Christmas past. And I hate it. And, unfortunately, whoever I am dating today tends to get the worst gift ever, if I remember to get anything at all. My brother does the same thing. It's a conditioned thing. You get conditioned to 'not care' to protect a heart that cares too much.

So, I am trying with all my heart to transform that drama into something positive. I want to give to someone who would love to receive my gift. I want to give to a child. An orphan. A thousand orphans.

I look at Madonna or Angelia or Mia Farrow. I see in some way we are orphans, parents alive or not. That is our plight. To give what we didn't get. To provide what we needed, not merely wanted. And it's not about 'things' and 'stuff' and 'gifts'.

I didn't get it this year. I didn't transform Christmas into a time of miracles. But I am starting to see where I get stuck.

I won't stop my quest to raise $101K for the AIDs orphans of Malawi. But I may fail in my goal to do so by Christmas '07.

And that's OK.

There's always next year.