Christmas

In a conscious and deliberate effort to keep Christmas alive all year, I have purposefully postponed my Christmas blogs until February. Whatever I can do to extend the merriment and good cheer of this wonderful holiday season.

I was overcome this year by the absolute joy it is to have children at Christmas. It was for me, the most I have felt the Christmas spirit since I can remember. It was certainly different than when it was just Braden and I or when we just had babies. Anabelle gave me the gift of focusing. She has not yet had commercial Christmas shoved down her throat. She hasn't been to school yet to know all things secular. She knows the story of the birth of Christ and she knows it well. I bought an illustrated book of the birth of Christ as told by the gospels. It has maps of where they traveled from Nazareth to Judea by the Sea of Galilee (wherein I pointed out the Dead Sea and she said, "Where is the alive sea?"). We read that book several times a day for the entire month. By the time Christmas came, she had memorized the book, almost in its entirety. Which was just memorized scripture. It filled my heart to hear her tiny sweet voice recite, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And you shall call his name Jesus." And it wasn't just that she knew the words of those sacred scriptures, but that she believes them. You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. I can tell by the way she begged me to read it all throughout the day.

It was December 23rd and I stood in the kitchen with a pen going over my to-do list that was literally two pages long. I was feeling overwhelmed by the things that had to get done before we left town. She came to me saying she didn't feel very well. I told her to go to her room and lay down for a while. To which she replied, "If you read to me the Christmas story I will feel better, and I will feel happy." My heart immediately softened for this small child of faith. We sat together on the couch reading the sacred words of the scriptures and I found that amidst my frazzled mind and overworked body, she was right; it made me feel better and happy too. I hope I never forget how I felt as I sat with her in that moment and realized that in all my Christmas preparations, I was missing Christmas. Thank you Anabelle for giving me my favorite Christmas gift.

Another favorite moment came at 3 am on Christmas morning. The four of us were all sleeping in the same room together at Ryan's house. We were awakened by Lila who began to sing perfectly, the tune of Silent Night. I was shocked. She can't say the words, but in perfect rhythm we heard "Duh duh duh duh..." Braden and I smiled at each other in the darkness. She had never sung it before and I'm not sure she has sung it since. Best wake up to Christmas I have ever had.

I decided to do a low-key, homemade Christmas. In November I went to work on a felt playhouse for the girls, with intentions of it being basically all they were getting. Well, as December rolled around it didn't go quite as I had planned. Time drew shorter and shorter, and my once fun project became a bit of a stresser. I contemplated getting her a few presents and finishing it later, but when asked what she wanted for Christmas, the response she gave everyone was, "a house". I couldn't let her down. I had to remove poor Ole St. Nick from the picture altogether if it was going to happen. She knew her Christmas present was coming from me. Tired of trying to hide it, I told her that her present was in my room, that she wasn't to see it until Christmas, and not to go in there. Wow. If ever I wondered if that girl is a rule follower I wonder no more. If she ever saw that one of us had left our door open she would yell at us, "MOM!! Shut your door! I don't want to see my presents until Christmas!" And then I would yell back, "OK you weird kid!"

The house did not end up being all that I wanted it to be, and in truth it is still not done yet. But there was enough to give to her. When she walked around the house and saw what all the accessories did, she began to get excited. (But the true love of the playhouse would not fully come out until we returned from our trip to Seattle-more on that later).

Lila got a pack of balls from the dollar store which made her one very happy girl. Yes, that is about all she got. I also made Anabelle a puppy dress and Lila will get one too when I return from my sewing hiatus.

It was a joyful Christmas morning (although it was actually Christmas Eve morning) at our house. We opened presents and then rushed out the door to the airport for a larger Reynolds gathering.