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People love you and they loose you, even if you are still in their life.
You staple the moment to your memory, to your heart, to the page accompanied by your handwritten mark.
Read moreSince December 6, I've been waiting for my holiday cards to be delivered. Each day I've been disappointed when they don't arrive. Still, other friend's cards come in and it makes me feel lighter, like somehow I'm surrounded by friends who we really haven't seen much of this year.
Some day our cards will be delivered and I'll bet the timing will seem like a joke or have some strange coincidence. I don't even know if I will mail them out once they arrive, since the moment seems to have passed already.
This year... I promised myself I wouldn't try to quantify it... but a lot CAN happen in a year. If you're out there, I hope you're still finding a feeling of hope in your heart for what's to come, because I still am. Don't let this crazy game get you down too much. There is still much joy to be had and connections to be made; there is always hope.
Christmas Eve to me feels like what most people feel about Christmas Day. As a child so much happened on Christmas Eve: my family decorated our Christmas tree, we ate fondue and went to midnight mass, and opened all our gifts late into the might. Then of course, Santa would come and would hang magical silvery tinsel on our tree so when you woke up the next day, it seemed to glow.
Christmas Day was much more mellow and low key. We had a big turkey dinner usually but otherwise, everyone was on their own outside opening stockings. As I got older, I remember going to see a movie on Christmas Day a few years, just to do something.
So I get excited on Christmas Eve. I feel like it's the true finish line to this crazy season. Today felt like the first time I was truly missing something because of the pandemic. I don't honestly know how I made it this long not thinking too much about it all, but today we opted out of a gathering as my sisters and that sucked. It just felt eery in a way, low, like something wasn't right. I found myself mustering my own joy and trying to fit the down mood. We went for a drive just to get out of the house and played along the frozen river in Deckers; we even got to see a eagle fly by. Moods greatly increased on the way back and I got to take Willy for a quick walk, including a run on the golf course so he could flush out all the geese hanging out - that might have been one of the best gifts of the day. I think we did okay. The girls benefitted from opening a few gifts to break up the day. We sat and had wine and cider by the fire out back.
Tomorrow will be filled with much more energy, at least in the morning. I'm now dozy and off to sleep. Ready for the magic to wake me up early and to kiss this season goodbye.
This season is a beast of it's own making. I'm convinced, none suffer worse from it than moms. There are high expectations, most cooked up in my own head my husband reminds me. These things include all the decorations, moving the elf daily, the Advent calendar, buying the gifts, the gift wrapping, the super secret Santa stuff, buying more gifts because kids saw the super secret stuff in my Amazon cart, the homemade treats for neighbors, and the family holiday card - perhaps my favorite part - but ours are currently lost in the mail. Each day when I update my USPS tracker like a stalker, it tells me they will be delivered late today. It's bullshit and I'm trying to not let it ruin my year.
Add to that my internal struggle to design and build my own Gingerbread house, mixed with procrastination and running around to three stores today only to discover what I already knew from years past: they were sold out. I'm working harder not smarter. So it is 11 p.m. and I am pulling homemade gingerbread out of the oven to sit over night and harden before I construct it tomorrow in time to decorate it with the cousins. As Maddie just said to me when I was tucking her in, I don't really have to have this on my list. To which I responded that I wanted my kids to have a happy childhood. But I know a Gingerbread house won't make that true. It's more about how I show up, which is why I had to remove my project manager hat as much as I could and let her cut the pieces of dough house before we slide them into the oven. We found a brighter spot as she dug out my mom's old cookie cutters and we made a tray of embellishments for this house, our house, a very, very, very fine house.
It is my own undoing and I try to not judge it too hard, like my lack of creativity with elf positioning this season or how I've indoctrinated my kids into this consumptive culture that will kill our planet sooner than later. It's all our undoing. Why do we choose the quietest time of the year, literally when most animals are hibernating, to have the busiest holiday? We should be cuddling in bed and giving our loved ones sheer presence in their day. I think that's what I need too. Or maybe just a quiet moment in the early morning hours and at night too, to bookend all the other things.
We only have this day and what we decide to do with it, and I got to share this cosmic moment with my kids.
Read moreI slept horrible last night: Too much different wine varietals during a online tasting and too much cheese to accompany it. I went to bed quickly and woke up a few times to an aching head, aching bones and then an aching belly. I love waking up in the middle of the night when it's an inconsistent practice. I feel like I can catch some strange beast or view that I'm not supposed to see (dare I say a Christmas elf in motion). In any case, when it happens at 3 am, I always think of the poet Rives and his TedTalk.
Three a.m. was when I got more water and moved the elf. I went back to bed outside the sheets under the soft blanket that provides so much tactile pleasure. Four a.m. was most likely when I woke back up from a beautiful dream where I was being creative and in my flow and came across a group of people I barely knew from an old project. An old friend called out my name and, before I knew it, I was sitting in a coffee house, talking and joking with a talented group of people about what our passions were. The energy was light and inspired. I was sitting next to the person who initially called out my name, a person that always felt kindred for some reason I could never pinpoint. We ended up holding our hands out to each other and barely touching them beyond our fingertips but I felt transported to another realm. It was a truly euphoric experience, like nothing else I have ever felt; so much so, I'm trying to figure out the chemical reaction in my brain during sleep to better understand the feeling. I spent the rest of the early morning flirting with sleep and trying to get back to the dream, to the altered reality, until I finally woke up. It's haunted me the entire day.