Friday, December 18, 2015

The Celebrating

It's been a little tricky for me these days to blog since my computer finally bit the inevitable dust. It's been hanging on for dear life for far too long. It was starting to get really pitiful and awkward.  Anyway, so since Sean works at the homestead, I have to wait until he's done to blog and it's like, i can't just all of a sudden be inspired, you know??  It hits me when it hits me. Or it doesn't hit me at all, and I sit down and hope something happens, like today.

It has bee a relatively calm Christmas season.  I never really feel like I go too crazy about it. I like to celebrate it but I draw some lines if need be.  Here's what's happened so far and my rating of each event on a scale from 0-10.

1. Getting our tree at Lowe's. 1.   No one was even around and it was nighttime so dimly-lit and it was actually quite creepy.  I thought, if they ever want to combine Halloween and Christmas, here's the way to do it.  We struggled with and knocked down several trees. Finally I borrowed a pair of gloves from a nearby glove bin which also added to the creepiness--bunch of severed hands-- and we found an old rusty trolley and trollied that thing ourselves.  Also, getting the tree at a hardware store is kind of a big bummer.  Still, it's glorious, so we'll just focus on that.

2. Saw A Christmas Carol play.  10. For some reason we have really zeroed in on this story and Julian knows it well.  So we got some tickets and had a great time. Julian loved it--giggled at all the jokes. And when the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come (is that capitalized?) appeared, which Julian was highly anticipating, he did not disappoint. Julian has been obsessed with Death for some time now. We've answered every conceivable question about him and really I know nothing.  "He's a character meant to represent death and dying. Like a figure-- Death comes to take you."  Anyway, obsessed. So, convinced that Death and this Spirit were one and the same, Julian hissed next to me, "I KNOW YOU, DEATH. I KNOW YOU."    I don't know what was creepier, the Spirit or Julian.

3.  Christmas music concert. 7.  My friend is in this and it is really, really great.  The Lower Lights. I'm giving it a moderate rating only because there's only so much steel guitar a person can take and also I sat in an AC wind tunnel meant especially for seat 44A (mine).   Seriously though you guys, no more steel guitar. I feel a little bad to say that. But also, i may have been a little out of sorts when we went let's be honest. Otherwise, they are excellent and I highly recommend.

4. Threw a big Christmas party.  9.   This was awesome. Our house is ridiculously Christmassy and we bought 3 tons of food and invited the whole world. If you didn't get an invite I apologize.  It was a lot of fun--we had the food, Christmas music and people who brought their instruments (yay!) some cookie decorating and all kinds of crafts AND movies playing. But you know what?  We three aren't really big crowd people. We knew this, and all had a good time going in but kind of felt like, well, that's done, now let's split everyone into groups of 8 and do this again.  After a while I just... ran out of words. I had no more words.  That said, I'd do it again. It was so festive and fun.

5. Spiritual moments. 10 One of our advents has pouches and inside each pouch is a Jesus parable. We will miss a few days and then Julian and I will do 3 at a time and it's really great.  I really love Jesus' teaching style and Julian totally gets it. We have a really great discussion during breakfast.

6. SNOW. 10. It's snowed a few days in a row and it's been so much fun.  The first couple of days we walked to and from school because why wouldn't we? And we kind of froze ourselves.  One day I picked up Julian with snow gear and the sled and we went over to the park and adventured and it was GREAT.  Reminded me of Prospect Park sledding adventures in one of the most wintery magical days of my life.  New snow is amazing.  And i love watching him sled with no fear even though he may plummet off a fairly steep cliff into a creek.  Watching him bail out makes me laugh and our sled is still big enough for the both of us-yay.

7. Worked on Christmas cards.  I love doing the cards. It's so much fun for me.  And this year Julian has joined. I didn't really expect it and I felt a bit possessive but he's old enough, apparently. And when we work, we WORK.  He loooves the systematic sequence. This needs this, and that needs that. Stamp, address, stickers, stuff the envelope.  He can do most everything and his little brain really latches onto that. I guess we're related.  I love it, and I'm pretty sure a new twist on this beloved tradition has been born.  

I'll end this here but so far, so Christmas good. 

No comments: