We got our tree! Christmastime! Dinner.

So, before Thanksgiving I made myself laugh (hopefully at least one other, too) by stating that Turkey Day was nothing more than a speed bump on the road to Christmas. In large part I believe that to be true although I fully admit to enjoying TG this year much more than I have in the past. Mercifully, the many and various pies I made are almost all gone! Both T and I hauled it to the gym today to work off several pieces of pecan-oatmeal and apple. In any case, Thanksgiving -holiday or speed bump- has passed, and...."Christmas, Christmastime is here, time for joy and time for cheer."  Though I am not sure what my ardor for Christmas and Valentine's Day says about me in terms of many people considering both of them to be tributes to materialism foisted upon us by greeting card companies and their ilk, I love them both SO much. Frankly, even if this means I do like hearts and pink and love and carols and garlands and wreath and shiny things more than the average bear, I accept and love that about myself. We all have our peccadillos, you know?

Long story short, we bought and erected our Christmas tree this afternoon. There is little that makes me feel more festive than seeing cars with Christmas trees lashed to their roofs, so I was thrilled to have my car used as the sleigh this afternoon. Upon returning home and watching T set the tree in the stand, the kids decided that their first task would be to carefully snip away the netted binding and while doing so said they were going to make a film about how to best cut the tree harness away. I am usually very supportive of their random ideas, but before I could stop myself, I said, "y'all, that sounds incredibly dull. How on earth could you make a movie about cutting string?" They replied, "it'll be a short video on YouTube." Touché. But I maintain that this is not a niche that needs to be filled in the old how-to department.

Even though Tom and Oliver picked out a runty sub-6-footer when I went inside to pay, I will bedeck it until its boughs groan with shimmery baubles. The boys and I started decorating before dinner, but the real fun will come tomorrow when they are at school, T is at work, and I can crank the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas CD up to full blast and go to town with my ornaments all by myself. Then I'll do the mantle, arranging the freshly trimmed branches just so, placing tiny lights and a beloved iron reindeer in the "forest", and hanging the stockings. I'll wrap a garland through the hand rail out front and get out festive hand towels and funny decorations for the boys' rooms that they love meeting anew each year.

I'll have to make butter cookies at some point, too, rolling the dough out time and again as seasonal cookie cutters pressed carefully into the thin dough leave behind scraps too good to waste. And then there's the wrapping to do! I love to wrap presents, love to give them. I love the kids' letters to Santa and I love seeing the magical looks on their faces when they open their gifts and with awe and wonder and thrill think that he received their sweet notes and answered them perfectly. It is such a joy, and I feel so very grateful that we can give our children Christmases like we can.

In other news, I also made a nice dinner tonight. A clean, sugar-free meal that will help the excesses of TG start to bid us adieu: crispy kale, garam masala cauliflower mash and oven-roasted King salmon. And now to bed with a good book and some tea.

Meatballs and a question

At what age do you get to stop managing -by which I mean literally bathing, helping dress, overseeing toothbrushing, reading stories, tucking in- bedtime for your kids? Because I am most definitely at the point of being largely uninterested in the process. In aggregate, I've done about 4,380 nights of this over the past years, and while I love, love to snuggle and kiss my boys, I am sick, sick of some of the other biz. In all honesty, when does this part of raising kiddos become more their responsibility than yours? Today was like a best-case marathon: it's not too cold, not too hot; you aren't sidelined by muscle spasms or chafing; your pace is strong; no one around you is a dick. Yet at the end, you are wiped out. Fried. Spent. Beat. Blur story short, we saw family, took several walks and bike rides, I made one million meatballs, we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and finally, praise the goddess of tired mamas, the boys are in bed as of 2 seconds back.

Oliver had a ginormous meltdown about his bath. "I want to have a HAND BATH!! A HAND BATH!! Not a tub bath!"

What, pray tell, is a hand bath?

Apparently, it is a bath given via washcloth whilst standing outside of the tub on a mat. I told him he best figure out how to do it by himself or ask Dad.

Jack had a lunatic fit about the fact that I asked him, after waiting patiently for five minutes, if he was ready to walk to CVS. Ol and I decided to make the short trip without pouting J.

At this point, by which I mean right now, I am enjoying a generous second glass of wine, watching T cook the fresh pasta (aah, fresh linguine!), and eagerly anticipating the best meatballs in.the.world.

PS- Was anyone else completely overwhelmed by the Black Friday sale promotion going on today?  Aah. All the ads felt like The Blob was approaching...

Thanksgiving 2013

As this Turkey Thursday draws to a close, I tip my hat to what writing so often does for me: get things out. I vent, wonder, share, laugh, process, and understand. I mourn, appreciate, enshrine and challenge. The powerful difference, for me, between keeping a diary and blogging is the element of connection with others: you. I cannot tell you how many earnestly begun journals I have let wither away over the past twenty-five years. Those with stoic leather covers and others with bright shiny ones, a few with lock and key, one or two in electronic form. I bought them on trips, moved by the destination or the person with whom I adventured. I bought them during low points and high, often at the turn of a new year or similarly nostalgic point in time. I meant to write often, or at least regularly, and a few of my efforts seemed valiant.

But not a one stuck until I figured out that I needed to be writing to someone. Even if I didn't know him or her or them or you. This has stuck, has expanded and fulfilled me in many ways, and I am thankful. Thank you for reading. And for reaching back out to me.

That I had a lovely Thanksgiving with none of the attendant blues I worried might cloud it (there is tomorrow, but I'm trying to stay optimistic) could be attributed to a whole host of inputs: a beautiful day with no gray in sight; a joyous run with my family and thousands of others; the wonderful family I married into; the knowledge and confidence to draw my line in the sand of cooking yesterday, doing what I could while enjoying it rather than pushing myself to do more than that and feel burdened; subdued hormones rather than their horribly mischievous kin.

Certainly all those things would boost anyone but I simply must acknowledge too the power of getting it out. When I wrote a few days back about my ambivalence towards Thanksgiving, I felt as if I'd broken up with those sentiments. Or at least owned and made peace with them. And that's a significant change. A positive one too.

As I head off to sleep, full but not too full, happy to have leftover pie, I again give thanks for all the incredible people and love in my life; for you, the individuals who read what I have to say and who, sometimes, write me to let me know what you think; for my boys and my little cat; even for my dog; and for the love of writing that makes all of it better, or at least better understood.