Slow Christmas

Each day is lasting a long time around here. For the most part it's a good thing. I'm getting a lot done, more than I normally do in any one day.  The girls are really having lots of fun, with excitement around every corner.  I think they're surprised that Christmas isn't here yet.  Jeremiah has been sick and time seems to be dragging for him too.  I think when he starts to feel better he'll panic because some of the campaign milestones are right in front of us. 

This past weekend I taught 4 programs at the environmental center and only one person came to one of them. Fail.  I've often heard that "free doesn't work", meaning that people will value something more if they had to pay for it.  I think I'm going to restructure the weekend programs for the spring.  Meanwhile, I'm still having fun at the center- my kids and I still do everything that is advertised.

My friend Jenny and I have been talking about how we're trying to slow down Christmas and make it more of a season than a day.  We did gingerbread houses together with a few other friends and their kids and tried to talk to our kids about appreciating what we did together.  That this sharing and teamwork and quality time IS Christmas.  New to the Christmas excitement:

- Daily readings of "Elmo's 12 days of Christmas" with a sticker chart that counts down the days.  I'm ending it on the day after Christmas. I think that day should be special too so that the day of presents isn't the last official day of the season of joy.  That might end up being confusing. We'll see.

-A first visit with Santa at the Preschool Holiday Potluck and Performance.  J. sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer along with her class and it was precious.  Then Santa came to see the kids and J. cried and wouldn't even look at him. C. climbed right up and chatted away to him.  It was very cute. He gave them both a candy cane and they appreciated it as something special.

-The gingerbread house, which we then ate as a family and shared with friends.

-TONS of handmade presents. Most things require more than one step, then there's wrapping them and writing the cards.  So we're doing one step each day and it's taking forever! But the kids like having these crafts to look forward to. 

-The sun sets so early now that we've been seeing a lot of sunsets.  These are nature's "christmas lights" to us right now. I love that we've been watching it and talking about it as much as anything else.

-J. has been decorating the house in little special ways and taking pictures of it all.  It's not really about decorating for any other reason than to make the house warm and cheerful since we're not spending time outside.

-Tonight we got a big tree and set up the lights. Tomorrow we'll do some ornaments.

Best Moment of the Day:  We had an all-day playdate with my dearest friend Heather and her two kids. We love this family like they're a part of our own and my kids talk about them like they're rockstars!  It was nice to have some time to get a bit of conversation in, but we talked like we drowning- speaking really quickly and getting cut off all the time. 

Worst Moment of the Day: Sore throat. It didn't start until about 4pm and I thought it was a result of singing "Twinkle Twinkle" too loudly. But now it's still here and I'm worried that it's actually a sign that I'm going to get sick too. As we are every single Christmas since we've had kids. 

Thoughts of the Day: Christmas is a season for giving presents to those that you love and getting together with family and friends.  So to not get a present for a close family member is an insult. It's also an insult to have a family party and not invite someone in the family.  We're facing this situation right now and it's giving me stress like you wouldn't believe. My head says that sometimes a person needs to hit rock bottom in order to find the drive to really turn their life around. Any support that you give until that point is wasted or enabling.  My heart says that I am a forgiving, helping, loving person.  Being torn in between for this many months has been very hard, but now with Christmas approaching, I feel badly every day.  I hope this plays out very quickly and that I can live with my decisions, as unsatisfactory as they may be.