Finding the Christmas Spirit

Until this week, this was the “Christmas that wasn’t.”  I just could not get there. It’s been a tough year.  Between my ongoing health challenges, losing my sister, Amy, to ovarian cancer and selling our fabulous farmhouse, it has been a tumultuous time. Most of our belongings are either in storage or are packed away in our barn. This means that we can’t find anything.  I mean anything.  The Christmas ornaments?  Yea, right. No chance. Most years no matter where I am relative to the holiday spirit, I manage to at least put up some sparkling lights.  As a Vermonter, I believe in the power of Hygge ( def: a cozy quality that makes a person feel content and comfortable) The Scandinavians have gotten this down.  But even that has been hard to achieve this year.  

Having moved this last summer, my relationship to “stuff” has gotten complicated.  I spent weeks throwing things out or packing them away, fully knowing that it might be years before I reunite with them. While our passive house is being built, I ended up renting a small and sweet house overlooking a beautiful lake.  The only things I brought with me were my art studio supplies and a small collection of clothing.  I am actually moving yet again after the holidays into a condo closer to town.  This will be great over the winter but involves yet another move. Couldn’t I just beam everything the 20 miles to the new digs?

 

But this story is about how I have managed to find the Christmas spirit.  We are in Colorado with our daughter and her family.  Two grands, age 3 and 6, pretty much guarantee a festive spirit.  They are vibrating with excitement about Santa’s arrival. They are snooping into the gift bags under the tree and are counting how many have their name on them.  Wisely, we are holding back much of the loot so as to make for more surprise on Christmas morning. We have also been brainstorming ideas for how to slow down the mayhem on Christmas morning. How can we savor the gift giving and receiving?  We have decorated a gingerbread house.  My husband, the architect, took over this project and the kids were completely captivated by the process.

 

We have hatched a plan to go caroling in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve.  My grand-daughter, Mabel, is a real singer.  This fills me with delight.  She knows all of the lyrics to a huge collection of holiday songs and she sings with boisterous enthusiasm.  We have an expression in our household which is “the fruit does not fall far from the Pear Tree”.  I am known as Pear Pear to my grands so this expression seems particularly apt.  We have been rehearsing our set list and have even assigned solos and choreography chores to Mabel. We have about 5 songs at the ready and came up with a genius plan to create a wheel that we can spin at each house to select the song we will sing.  We haven’t quite designed the mechanics of it yet but we have painted the wheel and are enthusiastic about the possibilities.   

One thing that my daughter and son-in-law embrace is cooking so we have already had some wonderful meals with plans for more over the holiday weekend.  I shared with them that I had found three-year-old Warren a knife set for Christmas.  They were aghast until I reassured them that this was a Montessori set and was age appropriate.  Might as well start these kids early. They have a sweet little kitchen and a cleaning set that lives in the kitchen. They already sweep and dust and mob up their messes, mostly. They are great eaters so having them join in the food prep can only be a win for everyone.  

We return home early next week to welcome 2024.  In the meantime, I am storing away all of the snuggles and love and sweetness that my grands can shower on me.  Whereas most years, I manage to get out a Christmas card, since this was the “Christmas that wasn’t”, it didn’t happen.  Perhaps this post is this year’s version of a Christmas card.  I send love and hopes for peace to all with a sincere wish that we connect in the new year in whatever way is possible. 

Note: I have struggled for over an hour trying to get the formatting right on this blog.  I've been blogging here for years so am reluctant to change platforms, but Google, if you're reading this, get it together, won't you please? And apologies to those who are annoyed by different font sizes.  I have given up.