Tag Archives: Christmas

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

We went over­board. Way over­board. I’m head­ing home two days ear­ly to move Char­lie’s old toys to the base­ment. Don’t wor­ry; there are more toys where those came from. Are there ever!

Me? Amaz­ing. Over­whelmed. Ever agree to keep Christ­mas small this year, just focus on the kids? What a way to be exposed as a Scrooge. Got Helen four nice gifts. San­ta went wild for me. Can’t bring them all back on the train. Crazy!

What a won­der­ful hol­i­day. Great food and com­pa­ny real­ly make you feel like a kid again.

In Praise of December

It’s cliche, but hav­ing a baby real­ly changes every­thing. I’ve been see­ing our hol­i­day prepa­ra­tions through Char­lie’s gleam­ing eyes and it just fills me with joy. Hear­ing him say “Han­ta” or “ho ho ho” puts a smile on my face. Can­not wait to see his reac­tion to the tree once it’s com­plete­ly decorated.

Thing I can’t recap­ture is that feel­ing of life slow­ing down. Decem­ber used to feel so long to me as a kid. Not sure if it was that the days were grow­ing short­er, or if the time spent inside meant more time with fam­i­ly, but the sea­son could real­ly sink in. Feel like I could just soak up the Christ­mas music blar­ing out of our lit­tle GE cas­sette play­er, the smell of cook­ies fill­ing our old farm­house. It was a warm, safe, wel­come feel­ing that maybe only a kid can feel.

Try­ing to re-cre­ate that mag­ic isn’t easy, but we’re try­ing. Helen and I have been burn­ing obnox­ious­ly-scent­ed hol­i­day can­dles, crank­ing up the Christ­mas tunes on the TV and get­ting every­thing togeth­er for our annu­al Christ­mas par­ty this week­end. Real­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing friends and enjoy­ing their com­pa­ny. Can’t wait!