CHRISTMAS HAS LEFT

Christmas is over and I am one of those people who looks at Christmas decorations the day after Christmas and feels like they are too heavy and weighed down by the season and begin to clean them up. When I'm done, our house always looks very fresh and bare and I feel as though I've just moved in again, regardless of which house I'm in. I like to take things down just as much as put them up because there's a very calm sense after a holiday. Unfortunately, I never get all the way put away and little piles of decorations are still floating around the house. Christmas itself was a little nightmarish this year. Because of it being dark when you wake up, it's hard to know what time it is. I didn't know how much I internalized the habits of the sun in my hometown but when I woke up there, I could sense what time it was--6:30 and a nice fresh and early morning or 8am and I've slept in. The position of the sun makes each hour so different. Well here you can't tell what time it is unless the sun is out and then you know you've really overslept and are probably sick because it's 9am and the kids are bouncing off the walls and demanding food because they're STARVING. (Starving perhaps because they wouldn't eat their dinner the night before because I am trying to poison them with meat, potatoes, and beans apparently). But I digress.
It is Christmas morning and by morning I mean--3am. Calvin is marching downstairs with his stocking in his hand and practically tugging Mercy protesting down to us. Get up mom and dad, it's Christmas! Adam looks at the clock and we both groan. Go back to bed, Calvin, it's the middle of the night (could I have chosen a better name for my son--I am reminded of several C&H comics bearing this same theme). Calvin dutifully goes back upstairs and leaves me with a whimpering tired almost 3 year old. Long story short, Mercy's down in bed with us and Calvin's coming down the stairs every twenty minutes until we yell that he can get up at 4am and open his stocking in the living room if he'll stop bothering us until it's light. Ha. That works out fine until 5:30 when he's played with the toys from his stocking long enough and he wants us to get up. I'm already awake because Mercy can't sleep. Merry Christmas everyone. Grumble grumble grumble.
So Christmas morning was hard and tiring but the kids soon bucked us up with merry faces as they opened the presents. By the way, thanks to family from home who all made a huge effort to send us gifts--even the socks, Grace. We can't get enough socks here and it makes us happy knowing how many people were thinking of us this Christmas. So, Adam and I go back to bed and let the kids play with their toys until we really have to wake up around lunchtime to make the kids a little food (who needs food when you have tons of chocolate to eat?) and then we whip the place into shape for Christmas dinner. AWF friends the Sumners, Ellises, and the Westerholms come for dinner bearing yummy food and horrible stories of the impossible trek to our house from theirs. The snow has stopped snowing but it has rained and now the sidewalks are just big blocks of ice. People cannot walk on them and walk in the roads instead--also not advisable here. But the dinner was really fun and it felt like Christmas to celebrate with other folks. Yay for good food, friends, and Jenna's mulled wine. :)
Now we're in that indeterminate space between Christmas and New Year's in which I've never known what to do with myself and am contented to make felt things and tidy up for coming January guests. We hope you out there reading this ramble have a splendid start to your new year and just think, what a wonderful thing for God to give us all another new year to start together.