the star wasn't up on the tree

-

It’s day 4 of some sore throat/cough nonsense that has left me feeling like the mom in one of our favorite Christmas books ‘The night before the night before Christmas’. In the book, the mom has the flu and is stuck in bed. Her well intentioned family has disaster after disaster befall them: cookies burn, line for Santa is too long, trees aren’t up, lights are not hung.


I’ve done nothing for the past four days except lay around in bed in my PJs watching Gilmore Girls and keeping the kids in the other room and my voice as mum as possible. I had to postpone a party we were hosting and skip on one I wanted to go to. I miss my family. I miss being able to do anything but cough and take cold medication. Also...don’t take Robitussin in the daytime if you’re weak like me and have been on a steady diet of chicken soup and crackers and assume to be able to function for work.

this will f you up (compliment)

When a mom goes down around Christmas, oof. How does the magic happen without Mrs. Claus? How is the sleigh pulled without the female reindeer? Who will decorate the tree and bake the cookies and RSVP to the events and make sure the family is attired appropriately? Who does the Christmas shopping?! 


Thankfully around here, the halls had been decked before Thanksgiving. The Mr. Claus of the household is fully capable of handling the little elves and the majority of tasks. The Christmas ones he can’t, hopefully I’ll be better soon and we tackle them together and we can wrap presents while watching Die Hard per our tradition. 


In some spirit of Advent and anticipation I was very slow to finish decorating the Christmas tree in the office intentionally but even slower to decorate the one in the living room, unintentionally. As of double digits December, the star wasn't up on the tree. 

there it sits, waiting for it's proper place

As I lamented the pile of tissue, the hoarse voice, the fact that Wally said he’s only ever seen me in PJs the last 4 days and that he is worried about me and wants me to get better for 2 reasons: 1) so that I could not be sick anymore and 2) so I can hang out with them ‘cause he misses me. I took some time to acknowledge that all of that is not ideal but I am so blessed to be able to work from home and take it easy, that my partner can do so much heavy lifting, that I will get better eventually, and all of this only reminds me that this is a season of grace. When grace was shown to the world, I can give myself a tiny morsel of that grace. 


And so I seized the moment and asked the family if they want to put the star on the tree, even if it’s not finished, even if it’s not perfect. We followed up on the tradition we began last year that Wally thought up and we put the star on the tree: we play Charlie Brown’s version of O Christmas Tree and the youngest passes it to the next oldest until Matt puts it atop the tree. Alice, who has become more and more of a visionary director after recreating the scene from The Sandlot, thought it would be fun to record it with the front camera as we pass the star and pass the phone.


And for bedtime, the kids and I sat at the foot of the tree and read one of our other favorite Christmas books with cozy blanket and Alice thought up the idea to put a fireplace on the tv (I’ve created cozy monsters) and we snuggled up under the light of that tree. 


The book I mentioned earlier had the sweetest message at the end and on most years I can’t help but cry:


“No it’s not sugarplum, these things are just stuff. 

Christmas is about love.

And we have quite enough.”


It’s true for me. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going Grey: On aging and being hot over 40

-
Image
I know that I got my first grey hair in college but somewhere after having babies the top of my head started being dusted with grey highlights. I look in the mirror every day and still see a brunette but the greys being noticeable was apparent when I emerged from the pandemic and get compliments on how great my hair and especially my greys looked. Suddenly the greys are a big feature. Suddenly my flat hair had heaps of volume on normal days! Suddenly my hair could pull off certain hair styles. Suddenly my son was worried about how old I was getting and that I was gonna die because well, “your hair is turning white”. Wally is obviously not chronically online to know that grey hair is cool now. Grey hair is hot. Every man with white hair that’s handsome and lets his hair go grey we call a ‘silver fox’ and it is a crime to us if he dyes it. My husband, when the sides of his hair are longer, has those silver Reed Richards / Dr. Strange temples. It does something to me… and not just ‘caus...
Read more

karlstad & sofa stuff

-
Image
The sofa I really like from Ikea and not because it's reasonably priced is the karlstad sofa. It comes in lots of colors and bemz makes even more covers for it: Well what do you know it comes in a sectional form. Dark grey, slipcover, for the reasonable price of $999. Reasonable yes, cheap, no. Couches are expensive and we have to be nuts about it because we spend a great deal of time on it. Matt really just wants something to prop his feet up on and a sectional works great that way. I bought a larger ottoman at Target last week, one I'd been wanting for a long time but guess what, it's too small. It works great but I want a bigger one. I think the one I bought will go great in the office and I was thinking maybe we could add an ottoman that matches with the sofa like this one and you got a whole set of propping up your feet goodness. And IF we added a little side table ($20 at Target) for placing a beverage and remotes on, would that be the icing on the cake?
Read more

clicked and bought

-
Image
Well after much debating I went ahead and bought it. The Lemonshine Ombre Console  is going to be headed to Burbank to live in my office. The plan is laid out here. It would replace the standing TV cabinet and all of its contents would go inside of the new console, three floating shelves would go above it on the wall (they're already in the closet, just waiting, biding their time). Plus, I want all of the contents of the glass-front bookcase to fit inside that console as well and then get rid of the bookcase which while it pains me greatly to lose it since it's so nice and helpful, there would be no point in having it since the DVDs and books would go on those floating shelves above the cabinet. I want so badly to find another place in the house for it but guess what, my house is too dang small and we are maxed out on furniture in every room. Maybe I can give it to Ben to hold. He has an empty house with nothing in it that he can hold onto until I can reclaim it for th...
Read more