The view from the 9th day of Christmas

Christmas (ok, actually most of the month of December) isn’t really a time that lends itself to sitting and writing blog posts. Mab’s home from school, we’re often sleeping in (so B can’t be depended on to take his usual afternoon nap), and my down time is spent on Christmas shopping and sewing projects for gifts, not to mention all the family visiting and cookie-eating. And now it’s 2016 and I’m supposed to go straight from first to fifth gear and resolutely reform all the bad habits I’ve picked up as the weather’s gotten colder and I’ve burrowed deeper and deeper under a thick layer of sweaters, wool socks, throw blankets, festive baked goods, and hot cups of tea with way too much honey.

I do in fact have some healthy practices I dropped last year that I want to restart, but with the new year beginning on a Friday, I’m actually going to start on Monday when our family gets back into our usual routine.

Right now, though, it’s still Christmas. The little hand wheel lectionary calendar I use with my third and fourth grade Sunday School students labels tomorrow “Christmas 2,” and the 12^th day of Christmas isn’t until January 5^th.

The tree may still be up, but I gave up replacing all the ornaments
B pulled down about a week ago.

My daughter and husband are still on break, so our tree is still up and we are still sleeping in and having pancakes almost every morning (when we’re not making egg+bacon+cheese sandwiches on the English muffins my husband baked. He’s fabulous). We’ve gone to the Museum of Science and Industry to look at all the Christmas trees twice, and we’ve been doing a few projects and made a couple big purchases for the house, but only the fun ones (like taking out the little white ceiling fan in the kitchen that tried to illuminate the entire room with only a single inadequate bulb, and replacing the whole thing with a glorious chandelier. I am obsessed with chandeliers—our house currently has four and I’m angling for more).

Let there be light!
Also, the ReStore is the best place for chandeliers.

I moseyed my way through Advent to Christmas, and now I’m continuing to ramble on through Christmas itself. There’s no rush to get back to everyday life if I don’t have to. My best friend and I were discussing how rituals that reinforce different values can help us get ourselves back into balance after a time of getting ourselves out-of-whack while scrambling through a difficult patch. And while my life has, on the surface, been pretty serene, inside I have been all kinds of worked-up, for many reasons. Taking some extra time to drink coffee in the morning with my husband in the light of the Christmas tree and going sledding with the kids has been exactly what I needed to slow my racing thoughts down. Hopefully on Monday I’ll be ready to spring back into action.