merry and bright

The holidays are upon us, and it is all very, very lovely. I am a little tired and over-sugared, but in a good way--nothing the bright sunshine outside can't cure. My sister and brother-in-law have come all the way from Iowa with my sweet Cindy Lou Who of a niece, Louisa.

She just ate her first bananas with adorable gusto, while five adults hovered, laughing and applauding every time she opened her mouth like a baby bird and swatted at the spoon, before being whisked off to Grandma's house where we will go tomorrow. It is a joy to see the cousins together!

While we were watching the Louisa Banana Show, Frances and Gabriel were busy making a little restaurant in the playroom using the wooden play kitchen that arrived this morning from friends who were ready to pass it on. As you can see, the pizza on offer was cheep for Christmas. Only two dollars a pizza.

This holiday season I'm feeling grateful to be part of a community of giving, noticing how we are the recipients of an easy generosity that is not limited to this particularly lovely season but somehow illuminated by it. The unexpected kitchen, the baby car seat a friend kindly dropped off for Louisa to use during her visit, singing carols and drinking wine with neighbors last night. The holiday cards in the kitchen from friends near and far--many featuring the faces of children who we love dearly--are especially precious in this immaterial age. Watching Frances run across the street with cookies for our neighbor all by herself. It feels so good. It feels like the way life is supposed to be.

Happy holidays to all of you, dear readers. May these days be filled with light where you are, too.

providence

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I had a glass of wine with a new acquaintance, ostensibly to figure out if there was a way I could volunteer with the innovative nonprofit she leads. We had lots in common, including Dallas (where I was born), and her interests and approach to social problems resonated for me in an energizing way. Deciding we'd talk more after the holiday, I wished her a lovely Thanksgiving with her family in Dallas.

She sent me a text a few days later, telling me that her parents had known my parents. They'd gone to the church where my dad first worked out; her dad had a note he'd saved from my dad! That's it up there. I was able to open the attachment for the first time this morning, and it took my breath away. My dad wasn't much of a note-writer; I have precious little in the way of handwritten documents. This is like hidden treasure that I didn't have to lift a single shovelful of dirt to find; it unearthed itself, shiny and perfect, and landed conveniently in my email inbox.

in the bleak midwinter

After the Lower School's holiday concert, I had plans to run errands with Gabriel and knock a few items from my to-do list, which has been buzzing around my head with more intensity than I'd like of late. But then the concert was very long, and Gabriel was very grouchy and hard to maneuver through the school parking lot, and in the end we scrapped it all, stopping at the library (which is not even on my buzzing list!), and eventually coming home to paint.

The concert was, as I expected, very beautiful. The first, second, third, and fourth graders sat in groups on the floor of a gym, forming a wide circle, the center of which became a stage. They played music, danced, read stories they had written, recited poetry, and sang. The grande finale featured the Upper School Chamber Choir singing one of my very favorite Christmas hymns, In the Bleak Midwinter, along with the younger children. (You can listen to a particularly beautiful version here).  Surprisingly, it was not watching the children's faces singing this song--one so beautiful and melancholy, evoking a sense of being humble, stripped bare, with words (by Christina Rossetti) that you would not think to place in the mouths of babes--but the faces of their music teachers, who kneeled before the seated children on the floor, gently conducting and mouthing the words for them with wide, sparkling eyes, that brought tears to my eyes.

All children need adults who kneel before them and look at them with such single-minded focus in their lives. I am very grateful that my daughter has them, and somehow an awareness of our great fortune in that regard brought on a bout of nearly painful awareness of my own (and my children's) fragility. (What can I give him, poor as I am?) Despite the sunshine outside, I carried a bleak midwinter within--earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone--which is why I couldn't bear to drag a grumpy three year old through any more parking lots today. And why instead I retreated home with a much relieved boy for a gentler morning at home, warming ourselves by the fire.

me party

This project caught my eye a few days ago, especially because it involves cutting and painting cardboard, which--and I don't mean to brag--happens to be one of my family's specialties (see here, and here). But coming off a less-than-satisfying interlude decorating the Christmas tree with my children on Sunday, I determined to dive into this simple holiday project with nary an expectation of my kids. Whether or not I had cheerful and willing co-crafters, I was going to make a Christmas tree garland. And I'd like it.

I began by cutting cardboard trees from one of the many Amazon boxes that have been arriving at our door this month, and waited for someone to notice. (Okay, I suppose I secretly did hope for helpers...but I wasn't going to advertise it). My dear son took the bait. Hey, could we paint those trees, Mama? Why...what a good idea, Gabriel!