Unpacking

Ahh...

Christmas is over.

I am home alone from holiday fun-making with family far and near. Time to unpack and put away all the new "stuff". This year it didn't take me nearly as long...a fact for which I am nothing but grateful. How I used to dread coming home from multiple Christmases and unpacking toys and other gizmos. I usually tried to prepare by cleaning out toyboxes and closets the week before Christmas, to make room to stuff our stuff.

But as the kids get older, I find the joy of Christmas coming in packages impossible to wrap.

Like the fun we had on our "family shopping day"...a tradition we instituted a few years ago in which we spend our time and money having fun together instead of separately trying to outdo one another with surprise "things." We laughed, we ate, we relaxed...and our children bought the things they wanted...with money to spare! How wonderful for me to know that they value our time together more than their spending limit. And that they have non-greedy hearts that know when they have enough and don't feel compelled to spend it all plus a little bit more. Merry Christmas to me!

And through a happy happenstance, my parents were able to join us on our "Christmas Morning" the next day where not a single gift was unwrapped, but we shared breakfast and stories and a little piece of life.

Then it was on to the other grandparents' house where we laughed at each other playing wii and then clung to each other through the freak bout of Christmas Flu that descended on the entire household. There is no one I'd rather be in a foxhole like that with than Papaw! Not generally known for his domestic endeavors, he cared for us all while we were too sick to care for ourselves or each other.

We lived through it to celebrate another day with my siblings and the various young children they've brought into our Christmases. It was fun to watch the little ones tear into their toys...but even more fun to see how excited my own child was to give a gift she had put her heart into. Parker and Hillary seemed happy with what they were given but equally so to see others receive. Especially my youngest sister who was surprised with an engagement ring!

Through it all, it was the stuff you can feel but not touch that seemed to matter.

Hillary basked in a budding new relationship (more about that later...maybe:) while Parker made up for lost time with my brother, who lives half a country away. (Fair warning to the ducks and geese!) And that is how I came to be home without them this post-Christmas day.

Unpacking my thoughts.

In a house not filled with stuff.

With a heart thats overflowing.

The Sleepover Song

(to the tune of The Christmas Song)

Boy brains vegging

by the Xbox light.

Music thumping

in your ear.

Mounds of food

being quickly inhaled.

And Mom squelching her deepest fears.

Everybody knows

that teenage boys are tons of fun.

Once you get past noise and smells.

Wouldn't trade these years for the world.

Happy teen boys are swell!

Baby slow down. The end is not as fun as the start. Please stay a child somewhere in your heart.

~U2

Drama Queen

Hillary did a great job playing a gun-toting southern belle in "Murder is in the Heir" last weekend. Several faithful family members joined my husband and I as we squeezed into the crowded high school commons for the dinner theatre. We were greeted by the cast members in full costume and character. Hillary aka Paula Thompson fluttered her eyelashes and looked up through her floppy hat as she welcomed us to the "mansion" in sweet southern drawl through ruby red lips. She never once dropped her accent or the essence of her character. The play began and our first course arrived. We got to know the characters and their motive for murder as we munched our beef brisket. Then it was time to vote. This was an "audience participation" performance. It was up to us to decide who the guilty guy or girl would be. Parker slyly suggested to me that we could cheat by taking the extra papers on the table and marking them all for "Paula". But we let fate take it's course. And in the end, it was Hillary holding the gun!

She later told me that another student had actually had the most votes, but he didn't know all of the lines for that ending. So it fell to Hillary to carry the crime. This doesn't surprise me at all. From the time Hillary was two years old, she's been in every form of drama production she could manage to get a part in. And she always knew her lines AND everyone else's. I remember her at 8 years old pantomining and prompting kids several years older who couldn't remember what it was they were supposed to say. She's the actor/director all rolled into one!

The play ended with Hillary being handcuffed and wrestled off stage to cheers and claps from the crowd. Then they were bowing, and people were coming up to tell me how good she was. And all I could say was "Thank you" when I wanted to shout "I know, right!"

But that would be a little dramatic.

We'll just leave the drama to Hillary for now.