It's nearly ten o'clock in the evening on the second day of 2019, and I'm filled with a mixture of gratitude and melancholy. I'm grateful for all you've given me, so much of which is front and center during December each year. I have this amazing husband who I'm walking into 10 years of marriage with in just a few weeks. He's been so home for the last week and a half. I heard him really laugh. I watched him sleep, and wake slowly without an alarm. I watched this man's man delicately navigate difficult emotions with our daughters. I felt my heart swell (never believed that was a real thing until well after having children) when I peeked my head in as he read Harry Potter to Caroline late into the night well past bedtime. I saw a smile I thought he'd lost when he rolled on the floor with our new puppy. Thank you for Dan. Thank you for him being home. Thank you for the people who stayed on the job so he didn't have to. Thank you that he has a heart for me and the girls, and wants to dig in deep in this home. These girls, God. These challenging, brilliant, beautiful, wild girls. Thank you God that I get to be their mom, get to be the hostess of Christmas in this home. Thank you for their enormous hearts and dreams. Thank you for their health and safety. Thank you that we had these days at home together - full of Grinch pajamas and make believe, singing and begging for hot cocoa. I see so much of you in each of them, God. And our families - so many special moments with our parents, our siblings, our niece and nephew, our grandparents, aunt and uncle. I saw the 90 year olds dancing. I watched the baby find the elf and show her biggest happy face. I saw the 9 year old light up when Santa knew about the game he mentioned. I saw my grandpa in my dad's traditions. Saw my mom remember all the little special details that 'make it real' - nearly 40 years running. We threw birthday parties. We went on little adventures. We shared meals, drinks, gifts, tears and stories and we loved one another well. Thank you for all the tiny little minutes. Thank you for the hard parts.
Am I present enough?
Am I grateful enough?
These babies will get out of the car in the morning and go back to school. There will be 4 hours tomorrow with no kids at all. I'm not ready to turn them back in - to let go of last moments of Christmas and let it slip into memory. It goes so fast. Impossibly fast. But these days we lived in the sweet sanctuary of Christmas - the warm, slow, cozy pace of a sacred time that the world interrupts less than the rest of the year. And now I steel myself for the return of another pace. A pace I love, but I forget I love when the tree gets cut and the ornaments hung, when the house smells of cinnamon and orange peel, when the mailbox is full of cards from the collection of people I love across this country. God tonight I ask that you carve a piece of my heart just right to fit the feeling of Christmas inside. I want to be the peace and promise of Christmas for people who don't have it, or forget it once those emails start arriving again. I want to be it for my husband, and my girls. I want to remind myself.
Thank you God for the gift of your Son. For the hope of the world. The joy of relationship with you. Thank you for these days.
Amen.
