Lovely Day Yesterday

I'm trying to figure out how to put this.  Yesterday was a lovely lovely day in my house.  We were all home, nowhere we *had* to be.  Finally the Christmas tree was in the house, and my husband had strung lights on it the night prior.  Outside was cold and pouring rain, and almost dark as dusk.  We had the lights on, the heat on, and all of us home. 

We were tired, getting over or trying to get over colds.  We watched movies all day in our jammies and then decorated the Christmas tree.  I spent the first couple of hours (!) obsessing about how I "should" be out and about, getting cards, gifts, wrapping things, running errands... the weather was awful though and the house was cozy. 

After a little bit, I realized that who cared?  Why did I need to feel guilty?  Christmas isn't tomorrow.  It's not this week.  And traditions don't have to be organized.  Sometimes they can just *be*... why be formal all the time?  Why define what we do year after year?  Some of that is great.  We have our traditions and treasure them.  But yesterday was a rare gift... a day when we all just watched goofy holiday movies and then hung ornaments. 

The kids were hyper.  We fussed.  It wasn't a Hallmark card.  What family really is?  But we love each other.  The tree, laden with glittered popsicle stick ornaments, is kind of the same.  It's not a themed tree, not a showcase.  Not what it "should" be, perhaps.  But it's dear to us because the ornaments represent the little preschoolers who made them -- like my son who is now wearing larger shoes than mine.  (Where did the time go?!)  Like the ornaments we picked up here and there on vacations over the years, some pre-dating the kids at all.  We talked about them as we hung them.  My husband and my train-obsessed four-year-old set up the train around the base of the tree. 

My husband also dug out a set of little bears playing bass drums which actually are bells that play 25 different Christmas carols.  (We're not sure we've unburied them since our eldest was in diapers -- it was all new to the kids.  My oldest son's issues sometimes preclude putting out breakables at Christmas since he gets so wound up -- and hypes out the other two -- that things are unwittingly destroyed.  OR he takes them apart to see how they work -- !)

When the bears finally stopped playing their bell tunes, and the tree glowed and we ate Christmas cookies my mom and dad had given us, I started playing carols on the piano so my daughter could sing.  She loves to sing.  She found the lyrics-only book to accompany a music book I have and made request after request.  I'm so rusty from not playing -- who takes the time?!  that it was pretty awful, but awfully fun. 

Soup and sammies for supper... baths and bedtime in fresh jammies.  Who could ask for more?

This could be a tradition after all...