Reminiscing about Christmas

It’s true.  Christmas is so long gone I’ve started hallucinating about pink tulips.  But it was such a wonderful week I want to memorialize it somehow.  All except for the Monday memories when all the camp families got together and cut up five pigs.  I’m actually just fine with not remembering that day.  Grandpa Dolwyn couldn’t believe my inner farm girl didn’t love it; but somehow I haven’t gotten in touch with her yet.  I tried to stay very busy making lattes for the real workers and then packaging and marking meat. 😉  Ziplock bags, freezer paper, and black sharpies are tools I can work with just fine.  The truth is, I’m super grateful.  We have a freezer full to the brim and a good portion of it is vegetables, chicken, and pork that we’ve raised.  It’s an amazing privilege to have access to food you know is raised in healthy ways; I just have a love / hate relationship with the process!

But then, it was Christmas. We celebrated our own little family Christmas on the twenty-fourth.  I adore those times with just us having fun.

No one rushing off to work, no school assignments,  no working on projects, just a day of downtime and special foods and love and gifts and games and stories.

I love the warm coziness of it and the sweetness of actually just enjoying being together.

The boys could hardly wait to get and give their gifts.  After investing so much of themselves into making things, they were nearly hopping with excitement for us to open them.  And, being normal boys, they were even more excited about opening their own gifts.  Some years it feels like I’ve found the right gift for them only to not have them really enjoy it until two or three years later.  This year, for some reason, it was so much easier to decide what to get and, almost unbelievably, I found both items reduced nearly 50% when I went shopping!  It felt like such a God-gift and I wondered if God doesn’t enjoy giving us gifts for Christmas as much as we enjoy giving to others.  It was an incredible thought … that perhaps He celebrates Jesus’ birthday the same way we do and made me much more intentional about looking for gifts in the coming days.  I found so many beginning with that last shopping day before Christmas: the discounted presents for the boys, one copy of the exact bird book on my sister in law’s wish list in a teeny, teeny bookstore, parking spaces close to the door at almost every stop.  It was incredible.

Adam has wanted a woodburner ever since he used a friend’s at a cabin before we moved here.  Now that we’re here and wood carving and wood burning happen all around him, he’s been even more interested.  He borrowed one to do a craft for David and came up with the design and content all on his own.  The board he chose was enormous and I gently tried to suggest he let David cut it down to a manageable size.  Thankfully, he did or we might need wall reinforcements in David’s office.  He told me he was doing a drawing with a trout and which Bible verse he wanted the day after David entertained a somewhat difficult work-related call at home in the evening and I listened to his patient responses as he got blasted with false accusation.  I nearly got goosebumps as Adam began reciting, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee….” I mean, what could be a more fitting promise for his office.  “You know, Adam, I think God’s Spirit gave you that verse just for daddy,” I began.

“Really?” Adam asked.  I thought the water part kind of went with trout fishing anyway.”

So much for over-spiritualizing. 🙂

Aside from David cutting the board to length and my giving him a third hand with keeping the stencils straight as he traced the lines of the letters with a pencil, he did his project all on his own.  Drawing, wood burning, poly, and wrapping.  I was proud of him, especially because he was so focused and diligent with his project.  I suggested spacing it out because it got really tedious.  Instead, he doggedly pushed on, taking ten minute breaks when it was too much and he started getting sloppy.  But the best moment was seeing the accomplished look on his face when David exclaimed over it as he opened it.  I want to give like that in life.  To know that I have given my best. Unashamedly offering from the talents God has given me.  Recently I’ve caught myself trash-talking about things I’m trying to do that I don’t feel capable of in front of the boys and I suddenly heard it through their ears.  I never want them to think that their best is not good enough or that it needs to compare with someone much more talented or trained than they are.  Then why do I let myself think that way? I hate that comparison trap. so. much.  I want to live life like Adam and Liam do.  Minus the bickering. 😉

And how I loved the look on his face when he opened his gift and discovered his very own wood burner!

I didn’t have to worry about David needing to guess about his soap carvings.  Liam giddily stood right beside him, almost unable to keep his own hands off the wrapping paper as he described each one (including it’s unique problems) as David pulled them out.  The first one was so broken he mistook it for another, but he was no less pleased with the gift he had given.  I want that kind of joy in giving in life.  Uninhibited.  Transparent.  Giving because it is so much fun to give!

Liam is actually harder to shop for than Adam.  I’m never sure if it’s because he just enjoys all of life instead of being super passionate about one thing for a six month period or if it’s partially because when you’re a second-born, you already inherit the goodness of a full toybox.  This year it was easier.  He’s looked at walkie talkies in the store and wished for them and for once, it was something Adam didn’t already have.  Plus, I was secretly pleased at the idea of having an easier way to talk to them when they’re deep in the woods with their friends at camp!

Don’t you just love that “OH” moment when they open a gift and are thrilled to bits!

Liam is a words person and his cards are always almost as much of a gift to him as the gift itself.  I’d barely started reading, “Dear Liam, We are so glad you are in our family …” when he let out a tiny giggle of pleasure and just threw his arms around my neck.  Melt my heart!

Their gifts to me were equally precious.

Adam cut out and stained little wooden coasters since we never have anywhere to put our drinks when we’re hanging out in the living room and Liam proudly made a coat rack for the basement entrance with a bit of help from David.  I think these boys caught their dad’s woodworking abilities and I love it!

But the best gift of all was downtime together.  It’s such a rare gift these days and I kept catching myself thinking, “I need to get up and …” only to realize there was nothing to fill in the blank.  David showed Adam Google Earth satellite and he had fun tracing routes he’s familiar with and finding our house.

Late in the afternoon we packed our bags and headed for Virginia to celebrate Christmas with David’s family.  And what a celebration it was!

It was a day of catching up on what’s going on in each other’s lives, delicious food, a fun gift exchange, and a birthday party for Chloe in the evening.  One of the sweetest parts of the day was right after lunch when David’s dad suggested each family share something.  If ever there was proof of how much our kids have grown in the last few years, this was it.  A few years ago, our days together were chock full of nap time co-ordination, bathing babies in the evening, re-orienting toddlers, and hoping that maybe we’d get thirty minutes of adult time somewhere in the middle of naps.  Now, not only do the children play together with far fewer power struggles, they feed themselves, don’t need naps, can stay awake on the ride home, AND can manage to sit through dinner AND give us a mini performance when there are gifts waiting in the living room.  I mean, next thing you know, they’ll be the ones doing the dishes!  Chloe even sang a solo.

Family is a gift from God and one we way too often forget to count.  I kept thinking of that so often this season, especially because death touched the families of two friends of ours.  These happy, celebrating times are a gift to be treasured.

The next day brought another gift.  God has given us amazing renters for our house.  Almost every time someone hears we have renters they say, “Oh my, how is that going?”  Apparently renters have a bad rap.  And every time we get to say, “Fabulous! We could not ask for better people.”  But June will be here before we know it and we didn’t know if they wanted to stay longer or if we’d need to put the house back on the market.  During a rough weekend in November, David and I both clearly felt God telling us He wasn’t finished with us here; but we knew that could be overridden if we couldn’t do something with the house.  We loved spending time with Paul and Jeanne and when they said they’d like to stay on, I felt God quietly say, “See, I’m writing this all out perfectly.  You wouldn’t need to even think about it.”

Friday held more gifts …..

a breakfast date with two of my besties

and a stop at the hospital to see a brand new niece!  Isn’t she a doll?

And then it was over.  But in another way it’s not.  What we have enjoyed and remember, we can enjoy again and again.  It is only the gifts we don’t see and the experiences we forget that are truly over.

I hope your Christmas 2013 was a beautiful gift.

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