Dear Christmas,
You are so, so sweet. Every year you come racing in and leave us in a cloud of excitement and twinkle lights and expectation. Every year we anticipate your arrival like little kids and are left sad and lonely when you make your way out. So many times this year I engaged strangers in conversation about Christmas and I left every conversation feeling like they weren’t ready for you yet. There was a sense of dread about the impending holiday season and I can’t even imagine what that must be like. We waited for you with bated breath.
I will miss this view: our cozy (read: tiny) living room filled to the brim with fresh evergreen and glowing lights, every inch of floor and furniture piled high with Christmas gifts, family movies on heavy rotation and endless plates piled high with Christmas breakfast (every day for a week).
I will miss Scout and his antics: the mornings when the girls raced around the house looking for him and hoping for another little treat, the late nights when we woke up in a cold sweat hoping he remembered to come back.
I will miss Christmas Eve, my very favorite day of the entire year: the anticipation in everyone’s eyes, the new pajamas and piles of pillows on the living room floor, the warm Starbucks and twinkle light adventure.
And even though we’ll eat crockpot chicken tacos once a week until we greet you next time, there is nothing quite like eating them in your pajamas while watching A Christmas Story.
I will miss this (crazed) look in our little ones’ eyes, knowing that it is almost time for Santa to arrive.
I will miss making plates of cookies and chocolate milk and leaving carrots and reindeer food in the front yard. I will miss admonitions about staying in bed and no peeking and late night wrapping.
I will miss that last giggle as we fall into bed at midnight after surveying all that Santa did. What is it about that moment that is so very sweet? Your babies are all tucked in tight, the house is glowing and you just know that every wish will be granted at dawn.
I will miss the moment when the tiniest gift in their stockings brings the greatest joy. When the $6 Santa spent at the last minute trumps every pricey gift you stashed under the tree.
I will miss messy hair and princess crowns. Karaoke machine debuts and dance demonstrations. I will miss every single thing about this morning.
I will miss the chaotic mess of the living room floor: boxes and torn paper, extra batteries and candy, lost gift cards and happy little feet.
I will miss journaling the Advent season, reading about a baby boy who came to save the world and documenting those sacred passages in the margins of my Bible.
I will miss five year old girls who love their blanket so much, that they wrap secret presents for her under the tree.
And even though five o’clock came way too early, I will miss excited wake up screams, hastily prepared breakfast and a warm and cozy bed to welcome me back before six a.m.
I will miss a reason to gather together with family, every day for weeks, in celebration.
Knowing that next year, we’ll be a little bit older and there might be a little less magic, we will cling to every single moment you delivered this year. Thank you for thunderstorms and too-long card games, for eighty degree afternoons and movie marathons. Thank you for glittery decorations that will make us smile for another week (or two). Thank for you a savior who rescues us from ourselves on Christmas and on every day thereafter.
You were a good one.
