Busy week.....seems everyone is feeling it. Not just regular life--pay the mortgage, the health insurance [before it cancels], do the wash, the dishes, child care, work. Feel like a burro doing household chores--weighing heavily on your back and shoulders--but save some brain space for creative work. Save some. Save some!
Buy a fresh tree, lug it into your house, haul ornaments from attic, decorate......spend a lot of time and money, tiring in itself, on gifts for people who already know you love them [and a few for complete strangers, like an African-American Barbie doll that one little girl's family requested for her, a men's backpack for someone at Covenant House and a basket of toiletries for a patient at the V.A. Hospital]. Don't forget the school bus driver and bus assistant--they're pivotal in keeping your child safe--and the wonderful teachers. The foreign exchange student who is staying at brother-in-law's house and will be with your family for Christmas.
Eat, drink and be merry....get air in the tires on Dad's old car because they're practically flat....remember to get big black garbage bags so you can smuggle Santa gifts up to Maine in the trunk....hit Whole Foods for sweet strawberries to take to the kindergarten party....revisit the past....the tiny nativity scene you got in first grade.....the corn husk angel your mother got you...the ornaments Sis brought back from London, the special ones Santa hid on the tree for Figgy every year, with a note. A fancy ballerina with pink tulle skirt, a Hello Kitty snow bunny, Barbie and little Barbie on a sled [that was supposed to be you and your Figgy]. And the soft little Ty Santa from 2002, when you were up in Maine, spending the night at H.'s brother Michael's house. She found the ornament on their tree. Attached was a note that Michael's wife Therese kindly wrote on white paper on Christmas Eve:
To Darling Anne Hurley,
Right now you are seven,
but when you are 17 and 37 and 70 and 97,
I want you to please remember that Santa
is more than gifts--Santa is sharing
and goodness and excitement and love.
You are a good girl. I love you.
--Santa
Today after dinner, it all caught up with you. You were about to do the dishes, but Punch called, Mommy, Tinker Bell is next!, so you lay on the couch near the Christmas tree to watch "Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure" on the Disney Channel with her. [The other darling, now 18, was at a concert in NYC.] The show was beautiful and magical, and Punch didn't take her eyes off it. She sat on alert on the ottoman, so as not to miss the beat of a wing. You looked at the pretty tree with the treasured ornaments, Sug curled up beside you--and you two promptly fell asleep. When the show was over, Punch had to hunt down her Tink costume and Fig's Tink wings and put them on. And then fill a purse with tiny things Tinker Bell would like: a button, a poinsettia leaf, a geranium leaf, a checker, a nut left in the Thanksgiving nut bowl.
You leave for Maine on Sunday--to get halfway through the trip and stay overnight in a hotel. And you have a lot to do before then. Good night, rest well.
TCOY
Buy a fresh tree, lug it into your house, haul ornaments from attic, decorate......spend a lot of time and money, tiring in itself, on gifts for people who already know you love them [and a few for complete strangers, like an African-American Barbie doll that one little girl's family requested for her, a men's backpack for someone at Covenant House and a basket of toiletries for a patient at the V.A. Hospital]. Don't forget the school bus driver and bus assistant--they're pivotal in keeping your child safe--and the wonderful teachers. The foreign exchange student who is staying at brother-in-law's house and will be with your family for Christmas.
Eat, drink and be merry....get air in the tires on Dad's old car because they're practically flat....remember to get big black garbage bags so you can smuggle Santa gifts up to Maine in the trunk....hit Whole Foods for sweet strawberries to take to the kindergarten party....revisit the past....the tiny nativity scene you got in first grade.....the corn husk angel your mother got you...the ornaments Sis brought back from London, the special ones Santa hid on the tree for Figgy every year, with a note. A fancy ballerina with pink tulle skirt, a Hello Kitty snow bunny, Barbie and little Barbie on a sled [that was supposed to be you and your Figgy]. And the soft little Ty Santa from 2002, when you were up in Maine, spending the night at H.'s brother Michael's house. She found the ornament on their tree. Attached was a note that Michael's wife Therese kindly wrote on white paper on Christmas Eve:
To Darling Anne Hurley,
Right now you are seven,
but when you are 17 and 37 and 70 and 97,
I want you to please remember that Santa
is more than gifts--Santa is sharing
and goodness and excitement and love.
You are a good girl. I love you.
--Santa
Today after dinner, it all caught up with you. You were about to do the dishes, but Punch called, Mommy, Tinker Bell is next!, so you lay on the couch near the Christmas tree to watch "Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure" on the Disney Channel with her. [The other darling, now 18, was at a concert in NYC.] The show was beautiful and magical, and Punch didn't take her eyes off it. She sat on alert on the ottoman, so as not to miss the beat of a wing. You looked at the pretty tree with the treasured ornaments, Sug curled up beside you--and you two promptly fell asleep. When the show was over, Punch had to hunt down her Tink costume and Fig's Tink wings and put them on. And then fill a purse with tiny things Tinker Bell would like: a button, a poinsettia leaf, a geranium leaf, a checker, a nut left in the Thanksgiving nut bowl.
You leave for Maine on Sunday--to get halfway through the trip and stay overnight in a hotel. And you have a lot to do before then. Good night, rest well.
TCOY
- Impromptu lunch with my friend Elly.
- Ate a couple strawberries, plus spinach and mushrooms.
- Stared down eggnog in glass bottles.
- Watching end of "It's a Wonderful Life" right now with H.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment