Cousins!

A Christmas truth: I spent all this energy finding the heartfelt and meaningful gifts for my people and while I know they appreciated them, if given truth serum I think each one would choose “family subscription to Spotify” as their favorite gift. I guess I’ll just take the win.

None of the celebrities I live with want their picture taken so I’ve had to take some mental snapshots. This is what I want to remember:
– Playing Truth Bombs on Christmas Eve and laughing, laughing, laughing.
– Watching White Christmas and realizing that my favorite scenes are also the girls’ favorites. Nostalgia osmosis.
– the hour I forced the girls to scrub baseboards and in protest they started singing “Do you hear the people sing” at the top of their lungs (both getting ready to audition for Les Miz high school musical)
– the way I love being the last one up in the quiet, still glow of the Christmas tree.
– John and I up early with our coffee waiting for sleeping teens to surface
– the fact the I am the only person in this house who likes the 70s cheese ball I always make, so therefore I make a double recipe. I have a LOT of blue cheese ball if you are in the neighborhood.
– the look on Alice’s face when she opened a present I especially loved giving (thank you universe for this one)
– the moment I confessed to Margaret that I wasn’t sure if I’d already given her a present on her birthday (tickets to see Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speak in March, and no, I had not already given them to her. Man, it’s been a long season).
– this age old interaction: John setting up his new turn table and speakers. Me: make sure you read the reviews, there’s a switch in the back you have to flip for it to work.” John: “it doesn’t work.” Me: flips switch. Speakers: music. Current tally of wife vs husband on technical issues: 2,378,876: (something in single digits). Brief triumphant gloating.
– A family Dr. Who marathon, catching up on the new season we’ve been too busy to watch.
– Lying on the couch reading Sally Field’s biography looking across at Margaret reading Michelle Obama’s biography.
– the unparalleled Christmas Day nap.
– Alice immediately drawing a purple and gold countryside village with her new colored pencils.
– Lily’s unbridled excitement at receiving a perfume named after her (“Lily of the Beach”) and the number of times she made me smell her wrist.
– that magical moment when the Pogue’s Fairytale of New York came on our new speakers and I cranked it hoping to wake up John upstairs who almost immediately started singing as loud as he could, continued all the way down the stairs and treated us to a stirring rendition of one of his favorite songs. Lily’s responding horror at the lyrics “this is a Christmas song?!”
So many moments. A fairly modest , quiet Christmas at home. Little of the carnage and thrill of younger kids but a trove of moments to look around and realize that THIS is as good as it gets. So in lieu of photos, here are my mental Polaroids. Merry Christmas.

Posting with a single photo of Margaret’s new guitar strap because this quote seems to sum up the day, and us at this moment in time really well. This is us – funny messy difficult tired cranky laughing singing aka THE BEST.

Alice’s Christmas present to me: an old Christmas picture of me, mom and Sue.
“Mother, During those early, dearest days I did not dream that you had a large life which included me, for I had a life which was only you.” Maya Angelou

❤️ Merry Christmas all!

And just when I thought it was safe to look at my Christmas tree, this shows up. Alice says “it’s a Chris Pine” (get it?), Margaret says “merry Chris-mas”, Margaret’s friend says “it’s a Christo-Fir”. Lord help me, I refuse to let this become a tradition.

A spider had babies inside our angel tree topper and now they are all crawling across the angel and migrating into the tree to make their forever homes. Christmas is cancelled.

If you need a reminder that the presents are really not the most important thing, take a look at the kids’ faces when he walks in their rooms. He could have rocks in that bag on his back and it wouldn’t have made a difference. This really touched me.

I always wanted to be Shirley partly because of Carmine and boo boo kitty, but mostly because she got to live with Laverne. Raising a glass of milk and Pepsi (in spirit only, because, gross) to Laverne tonight. 😢

Walking to the store tonight, Lily and I passed the house where Alice is baby sitting two little girls and saw this through the front window. “My scalp hurts” she says. Ahhh, babysitting.

Many, many times over the past 18 months I’ve second guessed my sanity at going back to school at this moment in life. But one undeniable positive are the study sessions with my people. Marg and I have a favorite coffee shop for early Sunday studying, and as much as neither of us wants to work on our projects, it’s lovely time together and I will miss it when it’s gone.