Christmas stretches out in our family like the long winters of the upper Midwest: ever-present, with its tenor largely dictated by one’s attitude. Despite my sardonic leanings, I mysteriously remained mostly positive through past couple of hectic weeks.
We started celebrating the season back in November, as getting together with my brother and his family is challenging (only because we’re on complete opposite ends of our great dairy state). The week or so before Christmas, I participated in a neighborhood cookie exchange, had a neat little Christmas party with a few close friends and their kids (more cookies), and attended our Girl Scout’s Service Unit’s Holiday Ornament Exchange (and even more cookies). And of course there was the creation and posting of the traditional family Christmas photo montage/card, as well as the requisite last-minute shopping and wrapping – but thank the good Lord for the invention of gift bags, not to mention how my 8-year-old, who is now quite proficient with scissors and tape, did much of the real work.
Before describing the proverbial meat of our celebration, I have to take you back a few paces. Well, a few years, actually. When my stepsons were younger and living at home, the schedule craziness that used to occur daily was, well, completely nuts. I have nothing but the sincerest of respect for torture survivors, and without being melodramatic or exaggerating, I feel a strange kinship with them. Cross a rabid badger with an F4 tornado and throw in a dash of grease fire, and that would help you to BEGIN to understand the outlying edges of the volatility that laced through and wrapped around every day, every plan, every appointment, every trip, every phone call, every thing during those years.
How can phreneticness occurring years ago possibly relate to a post about Christmas 2009? Quite a lot, actually. You see, as my stepsons grew older and graduated from high school, they gained more autonomy in where to go for what event/holiday. Coordination and decision-making between two very different households became largely moot. Simultaneously, as this transition was happening, we added three little ones to our family. Somewhere in the maze of changing diapers and attending basketball tournaments and disciplining toddlers and enduring high school parent-teacher conferences and surviving infant immunizations and enforcing curfews, hubby and I made the very conscious decision to make Christmas Eve a special time for our family. We would drive nowhere. We would bend to no one else’s needs or whims. What liberation! And what a great idea.
So this year, as we have for the past several years, hubby and I, and Claire, Kate, and Amy just hung out and made merry in our own special way. Gifts were minimal this year (on Christmas Eve, that is – if I had to catalog everything each child received on Christmas Day, well… Bluehost doesn’t offer enough storage space for such a list), which made our fun even more pure. (Note to self: LESS IS MORE! Note to hubby: YES, you HAVE been right all these years. And aren’t you shocked and impressed that I can admit it?!) The girls received a Wii and Wii Fit, a joint gift from Santa and Daddy and Mommy. They understand that I, like many mommies, have a special super-secret communications portal to Kris Kringle, and that we coordinate gift giving that is directly proportional to their behavior and potential. [Don’t giggle, they BELIEVE! What is more Christmas than belief??]
As an extra-special treat, my youngest stepson joined us for our evening of Christmas fun. He and hubby jammed a little on their guitars – a small electric guitar and amp was our gift to him – while I ran to Target to buy the last extra Wii controller on the shelves of any store in our county. Really, WHY do they not tell you somewhere in flashing bold type that only one controller comes with the Wii package and that having two of them is just, well, practically required.
We ate a simple but pretty good meal. The boys strummed. And we all Wii’ed. Without extensive planning or complex gift giving, it truly was one of my best Christmases EVER. And that’s saying something!!
Oh, and I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t tell you that I was practically stunned speechless (operative word: “practically”) to receive an exceedingly generous gift from hubby. Two words: Spa. Treatments. Yes, that second word was plural. While I can hardly wait to schedule my Official Day of Respite and Beauty (hoping that no body parts go into severe shock after such an extended hiatus from such pampering, of course…), the reminder that hubby recognizes my contributions to our family and commitment to our marriage – well, how does the commercial go? PRICELESS!
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