On Christmas Day this is the state of my Advent Wreath! A good intention, that was all! This is the first year since I've had children that I didn't put it up to prepare for Christmas. It all went so fast that we were only able to enjoy the one at church.
Our tree was large but decorated with only a very small portion of our ornaments. I put up none of our decorations around the house. I DID have food and drinks and the shopping was done- we were wrapped and ready! A beautiful unexpected snowfall on Christmas Eve didn't keep us from the late night Mass which was lovely. Larry and I sang all the verses to every Christmas Carol that we knew while there. We had some major laughs while opening gifts! No tears this year except for the ones brought on from laughing so hard that you then have to change your britches!
I took only a couple of pictures and those were obtained during the last hour of the day. I was very much present although not digitally, while watching my grandchildren with their parents opening their gifts. The young and older kids crowded into this living room that seems to get smaller every year. It is so not about the stuff- it is about the love behind each carefully selected gift. It is about trying to please someone else with something that they need or would like but would never buy for themselves. Or, in this case, it is about those gorgeous items from Nibblins that I wanted so I bought them for Larry!
John was the recipient of Jeff and Chelsea's generosity as we near the end of the line of the "individual splurging" that he started years ago. He knows that John, like himself at that age, loves computers. So he bought him a new one in parts and is teaching him how to build it. Jeff also spent HOURS of time converting our old home movies from VHS to DVD. These he presented to each of us. Larry and I watched them all last night. Before going to bed, I thought about all that I had seen in the movies of our life together. So much work! So many cakes I've cut! So many little outfits that I remember the kids wearing. When did Larry have time to plant all of those flowers, trees and bushes and decorate the house for the holidays? When did I have time to dress kids for church and braid Meg's hair just so? How much time we spent just playing with the current baby and watching her try to crawl. So many Christmas trees! In some scenes were my parents and brothers and sisters gathered just as we do now. In others are Larry's family having come to visit us. I found out the older kids did argue when they were younger- I had completely forgotten that! How could it be that we were SO much thinner back then ?!!!
Family Life is an accomplishment. It is made up of a lifetime of todays and "right now's". I went to bed very grateful on this Christmas Night for God's Amazing Grace in His gift of the Willingness to do the hard work over many years that it takes to make Family Life possible. Larry and I were given great examples of this in our homes growing up. I suspect that this DVD set of home movies may help to document for our children a small example of the love and teamwork that motivated us to build a life for our family which is no doubt what all families do, each in its own way. To God be the Glory!
