IT ALL BECAME CLEAR
I had been well sort of avoiding the yearly decorating for Christmas this year. I had let myself forget the important things are sometimes the simplest. It started on Thanksgiving Day we had that horrible light bill, and then there was the slow work month before it had taken a toll on my nerves. I had all but cried over the juggling of it all to work out, just choosing the most reasonable way to actually make our world seem normal was a challenge in itself, the weather was hot and balmy all through the season, my husband decided to paint the dinning room, and then he also brought in paint for the living room and I’m not sure what other room he intends to paint, and my 13 year old had managed to get herself punished so badly that she was left in the stone ages, and the whiney phase of you just don’t love me, and the why are you just so mean now, and I’m so bored there is nothing to do, and the all to familiar as soon as I turn 18 I’m moving out. I guess I managed to believe that decorating was so important right now. That has all changed this week. I have allowed my 13 year old 2 phone calls in the last month and she’s not so very bored now, she has the table to set, the dishes to clear, the car to clean out daily, and we have found that her room does have a floor, and just yesterday at dinner she was telling my 11 year old about how she would be the one to give him his old room back if he was grown and needed somewhere to sleep. It seems as though she may stay a while longer, things were starting to change for the better (except for the paint smell and the drop cloths everywhere) I got up today at 5am to a brisk cool day and to my surprise my 9 year old was waiting for me with a his piggy bank and a hammer in tow, It turns out that his school was hosting holiday shopping for kids, and when I asked if he was sure he said mom its December 12th 12 days until Christmas and I have to get a few things. He left with $ 15.00 all of it in change and 6 cans of food for the holiday food drive when I picked him up he had a beautiful diamond bracelet (well they looked like diamonds to him) for his sister, a tool set for his older brother an already wrapped gift for his room mate my 11 year old, an eraser he did not say for who, a tape measure for dad he was so happy and bubbling over with joy he even had change in his pocket “wow” I said you really have Christmas on the run, you have completed more than half of your Christmas list, He said well mom I got tired of waiting for you to ask me to go shopping so maybe it was you who are waiting for me to ask this year instead. So I made yours first, and then dads and a few others, but I got dad something extra because well mom he is dad. I did not let him see my tears; he was in the back of the car anyway so I’m most sure he did not see me. I helped him wrap them all in secret we had managed to sneak them in without so much as raising an ounce of suspicion from anyone. During dinner he asked my 13 year old if she knew that there were just two weeks left for Christmas, and that if she was really good Santa could possibly see his way past all of the other stuff and her stocking might have great stuff in it not just a lump of coal. She just smiled and said well I guess I’ll have to take that into consideration before I go to sleep tonight. We had our dinner in our cozy breakfast nook and noticed that it had been a while since we had eaten a meal there together by the end of dinner we realized why it was to crowed for us now but we all laughed and did not seem to mind it so much the other choice would be to eat with the smell of paint. We sat there and made plans for decorating the house and maybe having a bunch of my children’s friends over to help. I brushed off those overwhelming problems and decided to deal with what I could on a day to day basis and that just maybe right now decorating for Christmas was the most important thing to deal with.
Food for the Mind
Lilly’s Way