Holiday Reflections

Our eldest son wired up an amazing display of colorful lights on the house, along the fence, up the flag pole (to resemble a Christmas tree), and down to the street. Wow, was our wee house ever bright and beautiful during this holiday season! I love the magic of different colored lights shinning against the dark background of the night.

Our daughter was my left hand woman: a brilliant co-shopper, wrapper, and gift idea person. She hauled in bags of groceries and presents after our many trips to town when my knee was being bad and carried stacks of boxes into the post office for mailing. As if that were'nt enough, she and my husband (Catfish) made all of the batches of chocolate and peanut butter fudge.

Our youngest son is the tree man. Every year he hauls all the boxes of Christmas decorations in from the garage and begins by putting the lights on the tree...a nerve wracking, unpleasant job at best. Then he carefully unwraps our hundreds of ornaments ( a collection amassed over the last 35 years) and hands to each of us our special ones so that we may select the perfect branch on which to hang them. While we hang the ornaments the history of each one is discussed and memories of other Christmases are shared. He remembers all of the stories and all of the places in the house where the other decorations go. He also runs the crew when it is time to take the tree down and repack our holiday treasures.

I appreciate that all of my children and my husband take part in the preparation for Christmas. It is very special to me that we do it together.

My three children are all adults now and I am very pleased at the kind of adults they have become. This Christmas morning, as I have done on many previous Christmas mornings, I spent time noticing. My children are thoughtful, generous, and gracious. They have never, even as children, asked for, demanded, or whined for gifts that were selfishly unaffordable. Perhaps it is because we have always let them know what type of financial ballpark we were playing in. All three of them give gifts that are chosen with careful consideration for each person. My husband also always finds wonderful gifts for each one of us.

Recently, I was watching America's Funniest Videos and saw clips of some of the worst behaved, rude, ugly children I have ever seen unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. They were tearing, screaming, fighting, and demanding more. How awful! How could anyone think this was cute or funny? We have fun together in our family but it is based on love and consideration not competition and rudeness.

We wrap the gifts that go into the stockings and take turns opening these small sometimes funny gifts. When the kids were little, no one could begin to do their stockings until Mom and Dad (bleary eyed from being up all night) had their mugs of hot coffee in hand. That delay allowed us all a little extra time to savor the color, excitement, and anticipation of Christmas morning. After the stockings are finished we take turns opening our presents. This provides opportunity for comment, perhaps a little teasing, and an appreciation of each gift given.

A long morning flows into early afternoon with us still hanging out together enjoying one another's company. I can't think of any group of people that I would rather be with on December 25th. Of course, if we could add the many members of our extended family who live far away, it would only be that much better.

And so to my husband, my children, and my family thank you all for being who you are and making the holidays so joyfully special. I love all of you.

........Kitchen Window Woman..........