Holidays and Family

Easter 2013

I love holidays.  If you really know me, you know that saying "I love holidays" is actually a bit of an understatement.  I don't just love holidays, I live for holidays.  They make my little world go around.  I love decorating for holidays.  I love planning for holidays.  I love cooking and baking for holidays.  I'm not one of those people that gets stressed out about holidays.  An approaching holiday (I'm including birthdays and all other celebrations in that word, by the way) can actually rid me of stress as I move out of the daily and into the special.

Christmas 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

I love throwing myself into the preparations of a good celebration.  But more than that I love sharing all of that with my kids and my family.  Especially my kids.  I suppose it's because the two things that make my world go around meet.  My children and a celebration.  There is nothing else better than the collision of these two things.  In these moments, everything is right.  Everything is pure.  Everything is good.  And it just lasts a moment.  If you spend your holidays with kids  you know that a celebration with kids is really a collection of moments.  Let's not get too idealistic here.  It's still a day like any other, so of course there are fights and meltdowns thrown into the equation.  But there is also a little bit of holiday magic thrown in to help glaze over those things just a bit.  So that after it's over you don't remember the ugly, you remember the beautiful.  You remember the sweet moments when an older brother helps his little sister with her new toy.  Or the moment when they open a gift and their face is pure excitement.  Or the quiet moment when they are dying eggs together.  Or the huddled session on the couch when they're whispering to each other and laughing.  It's magic.  It's holiday magic.  I'm happen to be the kind of person that seeks out magic.

Halloween 2012

Chris' Birthday 2012

And I know I'm lucky, because I know this is not everyone's holiday experience.  Holidays cause some people stress for good reason.  I've heard stories of holidays gone bad and I think my reaction to celebrations would be different if that was my history.  But I grew up in house where holidays were a really big deal.  When everything else was upside-down and sideways, holidays were still right-side-up.  And that's still true.  My sisters and I will travel great distances to be together on holidays.  (Or we've been known to put all of our kids in matching clothes so that hundreds of  miles apart we feel like we're together.)  Holidays play a big part in our history.  I come from a family of survivors.  If you were to sit down and listen to the story of my family you'd find out that we should really be highly dysfunctional.  Things are always going wrong!   (Really.  I should write a book about it.  It would keep you on the edge of your seat, I promise.)  Just in the last few years, between the three of us we have been through major car accidents, major surgeries, cross country moves, marriage, divorce, complicated child birth, NICU, bankruptcy, job searches, and an unfortunate incident with a cup of coffee.  That's just in the last few years and I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting!  But all of that has made us closer.  My sisters are my best friends.  And I think it has something to do with the fact that our life has been complicated since we were born, but there were always days set aside when all was right and warm and good in our world.  Our parents gave us that.  And now we each give that to our children.

4th of July 2012

Easter 2013

The thought, the planning, the care that I pour into holidays is all for my three crazy sprites.  I know that their world sometimes feels upside-down and sideways.   I know it feels that way because I'm living this life with them.  But I hope that on a handful of days throughout the year, I can make their world right -side-up.  For a few moments, we can celebrate and laugh and play.  And I hope that in those moments, their world is right and warm and good.  So that one day, many years from now, I can watch them do the same thing for their children.