Christmas 2014

Early morning. Coffee. Couch blanket. Boys tearing through stockings. Typically, all adults are on hand at this ungodly hour to witness the children’s excitement, but this year I was the only one who got out of bed. Santa ran out of candy and oranges on the last stocking, so mine was mostly empty and topped with a squishy bit of fruit from the back of the fridge. A cockroach ran out of my stocking when I looked into it. My days of holiday magic and delight appear to be at an intermission.

There were Skylanders and Legos and a wry stare-down over a package of underwear, but the runaway hit of the day was the electronic sound effects maker. Screams and farts and deep-voiced baby cries punctuated the early morning.

OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?

But it was a lovely day, with lovely booze, and a lovely meat pie to stuff into the cousins and a lovely plum pudding that caught the table on fire. I missed dessert, because of a dinner-time diaper blow-out and subsequent bath/trouser scrubbing, I did manage to watch the end of a Christmas Story and knit a couple of rows with a kitten down my shirt.

And then it was done, and it’s back to work again. I feel a bit sad and confused about it. I think the theme of 2015 will have to be “Redoubling my Efforts”. More running, more making, more cleaning, more cookie-baking, more feeling. I will make it happen.

“If you trust in yourself. . . and believe in your dreams. . . and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men