Making a Home for the Holidays.

Every year, I relish the prepping of our home for the holidays. The boxes and bins, the tangle of lights, the smell of evergreen and cinnamon. Childhood ornaments, handmade ornaments, ornaments for every year of my marriage.

I think it's fitting that this year the feeling I had while decorating the house was less "happy, joy, nostalgia" and more "frenetic, frenzied, chaos".....because that seems to be the feeling that has stalked us through the past twelve months. The feeling we try desperately to shake, everyday. The overwhelming and unsettling feeling that accompanies renovations and new babies and new businesses.

As we unpacked boxes and trimmed the tree I had a pit in my stomach and a running to-do list in my head.
I lost focus of my children and my husband and my sister....totally aware that I was missing the moment, completely unsure of how to do anything about it.

And then, *smash*. Winnie, in all the excitement, dropped an ornament I had made for Jamie the year we bought our first house. It was ugly and inexpensive...but totally irreplaceable. Out of sheer exhaustion & frustration, I almost started to cry. For the first time in my life, I was feeling the weight of the holidays. A feeling I'd never been able to understand or appreciate.

I made a decision. "This will NOT be me. I love this time of year. I love the decorations and the making and the merriment and I refuse to let responsibility ruin that, I don't care how old I am!".

I mentally crossed things off my to-do list. I made a hot cup of tea and I settled in with my family. I strung orange slices, and laughed when the lights on the tree wouldn't work (do they ever?) and read Christmas stories and then I went to bed early, with my whole family in tow.

Over the following week, we continued to unpack boxes and add decorations, here and there. We made new decorations for our new home and passed on those that no longer "fit".

I love this place. The house we've built with our own two hands. With our families and our children. The house that didn't even exist this time last year. I'm so glad we took the time to decorate. To mark our accomplishment and to celebrate it......to celebrate each other and the coming new year.

Hopefully, 2012 is more calm. More peaceful.
It's exciting to think about the way "life" might be the next time we pull out these decorations?