09 January 2010

Christmas is over

I am (quite reluctantly) putting away the decorations, books, CDs, etc.  To be honest, I think that some of my reluctance stems not so much from a love of the season as from a sense of regret at (yet again) not completing many of my plans for us.  I truly have made efforts to limit my desires to only those things which I and/or my husband and children really want to do, yet I still seem to accomplish so little.  We did not finish any of the Advent readings; we never even got the fourth candle lit, let alone the Christ candle.  We didn't get a family picture.  We didn't make any ornaments.  We didn't even read the story of the Nativity from the Bible.  I did absolutely nothing special for the 12 Days of Christmas or Epiphany.

We did get a tree up and some lights on it; I gave the girls some pretty glass snowflake ornaments that I had bought at a craft fair (and promptly misplaced) last year, and
I bought some painted acorn snowcaps at a craft fair this year for the guys.  I finally attended a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve this year, and it was lovely.  We had our traditional Christmas brunch dishes: egg casserole, little smoked sausages, cranberry-pear crisp, and gingerbread baked in my castle-shaped-bundt-cake-pan.  We had some friends over on New Year's Eve and made a few more of our traditional treats: spinach piroshky, queso bites, and vegan-oatmeal-craisin-chocolate-chip cookies.  Before the arrival of our guests the kids and I got the house clean. really clean. cleaner than it's been in 5 years. and we have kept it up.

All told, it was not a bad Advent/Christmas season in our home.  My children and my wonderful husband all have fond memories of the past six weeks, and I
was able to focus on the nativity of our LORD and ignore the clamor for the world.

I think, though, that I will leave the blue twinkle lights which I bought for Advent this year up around the kitchen windows.  They have become a pleasant companion during my pre-dawn prayer time.

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