Tuesday, December 24, 2013

(Not so) Random Acts of Christmas Eve

     For my children's entire lives, the week before Christmas has been all about the Big Reveal.  My Personal Chef has elevated the delivery of gifts to an art. He calls it Making Memories and he takes it very seriously.
   
     The first year of  Making Memories, he put all of Thing 1's and Thing 2's gifts in refrigerator boxes.  To see their faces when they saw the GIANT wrapped gifts in the living room was priceless.  There was the year that my Personal Chef spent countless hours locked away in his workshop downstairs, creating what was sure to be a masterpiece.  He put wrapping paper up on the windows and padlocks on the doors to keep prying eyes out.  All the kids in the neighborhood were engaged in trying to suss out the secret.  Were the kids ever surprised when they came downstairs Christmas morning to discover that they had gotten computers!  Yes, to throw the kids off the track, my husband actually spent hours in the basement watching sports.  During commercials, he'd  rev a drill or saw, maybe bang a hammer against some scrap wood.  He even threw handfuls of sawdust onto his shirt and in his hair before coming upstairs.  That was tough to beat, but the year the kids had to go through the entire neighborhood on a scavenger hunt to find their gifts was pretty spectacular. "Two Days Until the Secret is Revealed!" has become part of our family's lexicon. It's what  my FabFam says whenever they are looking forward to something any time of year now.

     So, this year, where we have chosen to have a Giving-Not-Getting Christmas, there is no Big Reveal.  Over coffee this morning, we talked about that, My Personal Chef and I.  He's having last minute regrets about not having a big gift to surprise the kids.  This feeling is unexpected.  In a year full of unexpected emotion, this seems fitting to me.

     Tonight, several of our closest friends will come by to share the joys of the season, which stand in sharp contrast to the sorrows we are still struggling to come to terms with.  There will too much to eat and to drink.  There will be plenty of laughs (both appropriate and inappropriate, mostly inappropriate). There will be some small gifts and stories and hugs and tears. It will be both wonderful and terrible, joyful and mournful. In the end, though, it will be overwhelmingly loving.  Even without the Big Reveal, I'm certain that we will be successful at Making Memories.

     Wherever this day finds you, and however you choose to celebrate it (or not)  may you find that you have plenty of peace, joy and love!  

2 comments:

  1. And so it would be that the master had his big reveal still...in the form of an 'ice' cold berry. Perfect Memory indeed. Blessings sister.

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  2. He did indeed. Thank you for helping him!

    ReplyDelete